Who Sows the Wind Versus The Storm Reaper
by HermitsUnited
Summary: The Doctor and Donna are in alternate reality of a Virtual Season Five, while Sam and Dean are somewhat in the middle of their Season Four. It was supposed to be a short story but it seems to have a life of its own. Out of my hands completely. Enjoy:
1. Two Worlds Collide in Summit Creek

_This is NOT a part of the Doctor Who Virtual Season Five, although it contains some SPOILERS (just tiny ones, though). The story is a result of getting stuck in translation of "The Art of Forgetting." It is a common fact that when we are supposed to do one important thing, we instantly engage in a thousand other things. For instance cleaning the windows. This is a sort of cleaning the windows story. I was working on the Doctor Who while watching Supernatural. And all got kinda... weird. And this story was supposed to be really short. Just, you know, fun. So, of course, it has grown and is still growing. I hope you'll like it. Because for me it is, you know, fun. Ah, one more time, English is not my first language, so I am very sorry if it sounds awkward. I'm doing my best._

_Disclaimer 1: I disowned the Doctor 764 years ago, after he left me barefoot on a Spiky Moon of Hotspot. Therefore, I do not own him._

_Disclaimer 2: Sam and Dean Winchester cannot belong to me, because if they did, I could never go to Heaven._

_Disclaimer 3: Of course other people own both shows and they do fantastic jobs bringing the characters to life. I hope they will not bear the grudge. Grudge is sooo bad!_

* * *

**WHO SOWS THE WIND**

**VS**

**THE STORM REAPER**

* * *

**.1. Two Worlds Collide in Summit Creek, Colorado**

* * *

"Well?"

"I haven't seen anything."

"It _had_ to go your way."

"Well, it _didn't_!"

Exasperated sigh.

"Have you checked the barn?"

"It didn't go to the barn."

"Did you _check_ it?"

"...No... I didn't... but..."

A metallic click.

"Yeah, a swell job, dude!"

A large wooden door opened slowly, with terrifying creak, inviting pale moonlight into a dusty old barn. A torch beam cut through the darkness, almost immediately followed by another band of light. Dust particles swirled in the blaze as beams searched the gloomy, abandoned farm building.

"There's nothing; there's just hay." One of the torch beams swivelled, finding in the darkness a face of a young man, now screwing his eyes in a pool of bright light. "What are we doing here, Dean?"

"Point that down, will you?"

With some hesitation the light slid towards the floor.

"Look, Dean, all there's here is some junk, some hay and a lot of spider webs. There's no sulphur, temp is steady and the EMF shows jack. It's just an old barn in the middle of nowhere. We're supposed to be someplace else. Meeting with Bobby."

"C'mon, Sammy, you've heard that as well." Another light beam zigzagged through the dusty barn, for a brief second catching another young face, with prominent jaw, wide forehead and narrowed, dark eyes. "Sort of coughy whinnying? Like it's wounded? Or upset?"

"Yeah, I've heard it and it could've been anything, some machine, an old engine maybe. They have some lumber-mills nearby; it could've been a saw."

"I know the sound of a saw. It was different. It was ghostly."

"Sure, a coughy whinnying... Oh, there's nothing, Dean, and I'm out of here..."

"Wait!" The torch beam tripped over something at the very far end of the barn, nearby a loft gate, opening to the fields. "What's that?"

A second beam joined the first one and they quickly travelled along the sides of a big, bulky shape, revealing wooden walls painted blue, a double winged door with square, opaque windows, and a pale sign on the top.

"A 'Police call box'? Whatahell is that, Sammy?"

"I've no idea. Some antique, I suppose. Well, it looks old... Dean, where are you...?"

"I want to take a closer look, ok?"

"It's a box... Dean... It's a musty old wooden box... and we should be meeting Bo..."

The blue box's door opened suddenly with a squeak, letting out a generous wave of brilliantly orange light. A skinny man in a suit stepped out from within, into the barn, walking backwards and talking to somebody as he walked:

"I still think we should investigate it, Donna. There's a reason the TARDIS brought us here."

"Right, as if she was never lost before," answered another voice from inside the box.

Two light beams disappeared in split second, as two young men switched off their torches and dived behind a heap of hay and behind a rusty skeleton of a tractor.

"Honestly, Doctor, what are we even _doing_ here?" A red-haired woman wearing a white, knee long trousers, a sea blue top and a pair of flip-flops joined the skinny man in the suit. "Every time we're supposed to go to the beach we land inside something like that. I mean, it's a barn, it's a farm, it's a bloody countryside! It's dusty, and mouldy and full of rusting bits of metal just waiting to give you a bad case of tetanus. I hate it when it's so dark and I think I've just stepped in a poo."

"But she _did_ bring us here," protested the man lighting a pale, weirdly bluish torch. "She _had_ to have a reason."

"Yeah... She's just pissed at you for all that hammering." The woman sneezed suddenly. "Brilliant! A hay fever!"

"Anyway, I've heard something," said the man quickly. "Think that could be..."

"Right. Stay where you are!"

The woman uttered a shrill shout. Brilliant stream of light pinned the man in the suit into the spot. He blinked behind his rectangular, heavy rimmed glasses.

"What?"

"Just keep your hands where I can see them."

"What??"

"What are you doing here?" There was a click of a sawn-off shotgun being reloaded and another stream of light crisscrossed with the first one.

"_What_???" repeated the skinny man in the suit incredulously.

"Who are you?" asked the taller of two indistinct shapes hiding in the shadows.

"Yeah, and why were you Houdining yourselves in that box?" added the other. "It seems a bit small for two, unless you're into kinky."

The woman squeaked again, this time with more indignation than fear.

"Don't. Point. That. At. Me!" she said. "Put that_ down _or I'll shove it upyour_..._"

"Donna, no!"

"..._arse_!"

"Don_NA_!"

"Stay where you are, you hell bitch! And you too!"

"_O_!"

"Dean, they're no demons."

"_Did you just call me a _bitch?!"

"Yeah, I did."

"_You bloody_ _pri..._"

"_DONNA_!"

The skinny man in a suit raised both hands (one still clutching the weird blue torch) and waved them desperately.

"_EVERYONE, SHUT UP! JUST... SHUT IT_!" he bellowed. "_QUIET! NOW!"_

Some dog started barking in the distance.

"You're people?" asked the taller shadow after a while.

"Well, not exac..."

"Yes!" The woman cut into the skinny man's words. "Who did you think we were? Bloody ghosts?"

"Erm... _yeah_..."

"_Dean_!"

"Well, _what_?"

"Dean, stop pointing at them. They're people."

"I can see they're people."

"We should just leave them. We scared shit out of them as it is already."

"It's their fault for making out in that antiquey wardrobe, Sam. What's a 'Police call box' anyway?"

"A telephone box from the fifties. You could call the police from it. Or it could be a holdback cell for an arrestee," explained the skinny man. "Now, would you put your guns away? It's a wee bit distracting."

"We weren't _making out_," said the woman. "And it's not a _wardrobe_."

"It seems a bit too intimate for anything else," laughed the shadow called Dean.

"Well, it's bigger on the inside!"

"_DONNA_!"

"Oh." The taller shape, named Sam, lowered his shotgun and came closer to the police box. "So what are you two doing here? And who are you?"

"I'm the Doctor and she's Donna," said the skinny man. "You?"

"I'm Sam Winchester, and this is my brother, Dean."

"Yeah, tell them who we are. Give them our insurance numbers as well." The lower shadow approached the blue box, gun still at the ready. They all got into the circle of orange light and for the first time they had a chance to clearly see each other's faces. The woman gasped quietly at the sight of regular features, huge eyes and kissable lips of Dean Winchester.

"And what are _you_ doing here?" asked the man called the Doctor. He took off his glasses, folded them and stuffed into his pocket. "Middle of nowhere, middle of the night, armed? You're at war or something? 'cause you don't exactly look the time bracket. I mean, your clothes... It's America, right?"

"What the hell?" said Dean looking at him questioningly. "Say, lady, was your friends tripping on acid recently?"

"Eurrghh..." gurgled the redhead called Donna.

"We're... we're the US marshals," explained the taller brother, Sam. "We thought you were..."

"Escaped prisoners," provided Dean.

"Escaped prisoners, yeah," finished Sam.

"No, we're not," said the Doctor firmly. "We're just... travellers... We just travel."

For a moment all four of them looked at each other with narrowed eyes.

"Yeah, right!" / "That's crap, man." / "Complete bollocks." / "Sure as hell!" they said in unison. Guns' barrels went up, so did the blue glow stick (as it didn't resemble any normal torch after all).

"Just who the hell _are_ you?" asked Sam, the butt of his shotgun pressed firmly to his shoulder.

"Put that down, will you?" said the Doctor.

"Or what?" asked Dean, pointing his sawn-off at him.

"Oh, nothing. I just don't like guns," answered the Doctor with a shrug. "You should have a banana instead. Everybody should have a banana. Bananas are good. Real ice-breakers."

"Eurghh..." added Donna, staring at Dean.

"It's just..." Dean shook his head, reaching to the inside pocket of his jacket. "It's just all kinds of stupid!"

"Yeah, completely bonkers," agreed the Doctor. "With the guns, and the pointing, and the questioning... We're going nowhere, fast. Couldn't we just talk? We could..."

He blinked quickly, as cold water splashed into his eyes.

"Oi! Watch it, mate!"

"Nope, no demons." Dean corked the metal flask and put it back inside his jacket.

"What did you do that for?" asked the Doctor with indignation, wiping his face.

"Wanted to make sure," answered Dean.

"That we're no _demons_?"

"Yeah."

"And how would splashing water in my face help you make sure?"

"It's holy water."

"Ah." The Doctor raised his chin and gave Dean a long, quizzical look. "Right. We'll be gone, then. Nice to meet you. Bye."

He grabbed Donna's hand and pulled her towards the box.

"Gone where?" asked Sam. "Back inside your box?"

"Back on the temporal orbit," said the Doctor.

"Temporal _whatsit_?"

"Orbit."

"As in _orbit_ – orbit? As in _space_?"

"And time."

"_Space_ and _time_?"

"_Demons_ and _holy water_?" mocked the Doctor, still pulling Donna along.

"No, wait, can I have your mobile number?" said Donna to Dean. All three men turned towards her, completely speechless. "Just in case," added Donna.

"In case of _what_?" they chorused.

"Well, you're apparently investigating something," said Donna in a tiny voice, covering for her last attempt at wooing Dean. "So are we. Then, _just in case_ we're investigating exactly the same thing. Which, I have no idea what it is, except that it sort of coughs and whines."

For a moment there was complete silence. Even the distant barking subsided for a while.

"I'll be damned!" said Dean finally.

"Wait," Sam raised a hand. "Wait a moment, you've heard that too?"

"Loud and clear," answered the Doctor. "Actually, at first we've noticed other signs. There were some unusual weather patterns in the area; temperature inversion, and whirlwinds forming out of nowhere, static electricity just sparkling, and transdimensional particle pathways simply piercing the fabric of reality. And piercing the fabric of reality – never a good sign. Plus the TARDIS sort of slam-banged us here."

"And you think it was...?" cautiously asked Sam.

"Ooooh..." The Doctor rolled his eyes, opened his mouth and touched the tip of his tongue to the roof of his mouth. "Something... I dunno... something dangerous?"

"Right, very," barked Dean. "Look, I don't want to be rude, but there's no room for civilians here, so skedaddle. Just go. Shoo."

"Civilians? Because you are...?" Donna raised her eyebrows, the pitch of her voice rising dangerously.

"We're hunters," said Dean. "We deal with this stuff professionally. It's our job to kick ass."

"Hunting _what_ exactly?" The Doctor furrowed his brow.

"Spirits. Ghosts. Demons. Werewolves. Vampires. Shapeshifters. Monsters. Occasional god."

"Rrrright!" said the Doctor. He half turned towards Donna. "They're hunting ghosts and demons with guns and attitude. Shouldn't be too difficult considering ghosts and demons don't exist."

"Would be nice, wouldn't it?" Sam laughed bitterly. "If they didn't exist?"

"Because they don't," snapped the Doctor.

"The whole bloody world is sliding into damnation and hell fire," said Dean even more bitterly. "Sixty six damned seals are being broken one by one; there are damned angels and demons playing their little game of backgammon here, on Earth; both parties are doing their best to screw us beyond recognition; and you're telling me there's no such thing as ghosts and demons? I've been to hell, man. Hell's real as... well, hell. All the things your mommy told you were not under your bed _are_ under your bed. It's just you're too blind to see."

"Yeah, thanks, Dean, for making us sound completely mental." Sam shrugged his shoulders. "But he's right," he added. "The things we've seen..."

"There are monsters, ok," said the Doctor quickly. "But they're neither ghosts nor demons."

"What are they, then?" asked Dean, narrow smile on his face.

"Aliens, usually. Or machines. Or just people."

"Aliens? Did he just say _aliens_, Sammy?"

"He sure did."

"Rrright!"

"Oh, so you believe in ghosts, but not in aliens?" snapped Donna. "How come?"

"I've seen ghosts. I've never seen aliens," answered Dean.

"I've never seen an ostrich farm," said Donna quickly. "But I know they exist."

Sam and the Doctor opened their mouths to join the spinning circle of a quarrel, when something broke into their conversation. A harsh coughy whine bore itself into everybody's ears, making them cuddle together, little hairs at the back of their necks raised. The sound continued for a good while, first low, then high pitched, hurting somewhere inside their brains. Silence fell, eventually, pretty disturbing now, after that demonstration of unexplainable presence.

"Doctor..." whispered Donna.

"Dean..." whispered Sam.

And they were running in opposite directions; the Winchesters towards the barn's gate, the Doctor and Donna towards the TARDIS. All of them suddenly seemed to be in a real hurry. They didn't even say goodbye.

* * *

**To be continued...**


	2. The First Sign of Dangerous Liaisons

_Disclaimer: Weird, but I have no rights whatsoever, and I do not intend to make any money._

* * *

**.2. The First Sign of Dangerous Liaisons**

* * *

"Well, wasn't that _wizard_?"

"What?"

"Those lads. The Winchesters. I mean – Dean? Isn't he a dish?" Donna exhaled quickly, rolling her eyes. For a moment the Doctor seemed a bit perturbed.

"Donna, they... they are _ghost hunting_.

"So?"

"They're hunting _ghosts_!"

"So?"

The Doctor gave an exasperated sigh.

"There are no such things as ghosts. Ghosts don't exist. I mean, in my nine hundred plus years I've never met a ghost."

"And that settles it?" Donna shrugged her shoulders. "I bet there's plenty other things you've never met."

"Not so many." The Doctor's voice was barely audible.

"Have you ever thought that maybe you can't see them because you are an unbeliever?"

"It... It has... It has nothing to do with my beliefs, Donna. Ghosts aren't real. They're not!"

"Don't you believe in afterlife?"

"I believe... I believe... I dunno... I _think_ afterlife may be possible... in one form or the other... I just don't believe in evil spirits haunting the living. Sorry, but I don't. Why would they be doing that, anyway? If they even existed?"

"Yeah." Donna tilted her head quizzically. "You probably believe that we are just atoms. Just a space dust."

The Doctor looked down, at his feet.

"Yeah, sort of. Yeah."

Donna bit her lips.

"Bunches of laughs you are," she said finally. "I still think they're _wizard_."

"They had _guns_, Donna."

"Yeah, I know... Have you seen his freckles?"

The Doctor grimaced as if stabbed. When Donna turned to the TARDIS's console, he whispered quietly:

"I have freckles too."

* * *

**To be continued...**


	3. Coming Together So Nicely

_Disclaimer: Nothing has changed._

* * *

**.3. Coming Together So Nicely**

* * *

Dean squeezed himself behind the table and sighed deeply reaching for the menu. Sam looked at him distractedly from above his opened laptop.

"What's good?" asked Dean.

"Don't know. Coffee's reasonable."

"Right; a day's special it is." Dean turned in his seat to read the menu displayed on a blackboard above the bar. "Sausage surprise? No surprises for breakfast, thanks. What's a pig in a poke?"

Sam immediately shrugged into full awareness.

"You're joking, right?"

"Sure I am." Dean laughed and reached across the table to punch his brother on a shoulder. "So, what have you found?"

Sam sighed and turned his laptop, revealing multiple open windows, all of them displaying deeply disturbing images. Among others there was a picture of a great fire, a picture of a comet over a small village, a skeleton with a scythe and a bloodied body covered in wounds.

"Not much lore on the subject," said Sam. "Two people died so far. Third one survived the fall, but is still in coma."

"A fall?"

"They say he fell off a plane, same as the others. All three of them landed in this area." Sam clicked one of the windows, enlarging a map. "But there's nothing here. Just forests, fields and a creek."

"What's that?" Dean leaned closer, trying to read fine print on the map. "Sulphur what?"

"Hot sulphur springs," said Sam. He looked around and shrugged. "Listen, we should be leaving. Bobby has a lead on..."

"You're awfully eager to face the apocalypse out of a sudden," grumbled Dean.

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing. Nothing. Just... you real trigger happy this days. It's like you can't wait to be forced to use these powers of yours again. Which you shouldn't. Ever."

"I'm not trigger happy. I just... I can't sit and wait in some Boring Creek, Colorado, when Lilith..."

"I'll be damned!" exclaimed Dean suddenly. "It's them!"

"Wha...?"

"It's them; it's the Doctor and his British chick!"

"Where?"

Sam followed his brother's gaze and looked out through the dusty dinner's window. The skinny man in the suit was galloping through the street, weirdly looking device in his outstretched hand. It looked as if the device was pulling him forward. The man had a comical expression of concentration on his face – one eyebrow wrinkled, one high on his forehead, eyes wide and wild, hair in complete disarray. The redhead was following her companion with much more grace and dignity. Her white pants lost some of their crispy freshness, though; she had a big grass stain on her butt and another on the right knee.

"C'mon!" Dean was already at the dinner's door. "Sam!"

"What? Where? What for?" Sammy looked at his laptop. "And what am I supposed to do with..."

Dean was already gone.

"Great!"

He caught up with Dean two blocks down the street. With his nose pressed to an almost opaque window, Dean was peeking inside a desolate cinema theatre.

"What are they doing there?" asked Sam.

"It's a detector of some sort," answered Dean, his nose still flat against the window. "This device of his. It looks as if he's searching for something."

"Yeah, he's searching for aliens." Sam adjusted the weight of the laptop under his arm. "Dean..."

"Shit!"

"What?"

"There's a spook!"

"What, there?"

"D'you have your gun?"

"No. And my shotgun is in a trunk. I have the knife, though."

"Shit, Sammy!"

"What?! I was just having my breakfast!"

There was a frightening coughy whine coming from the theatre's lobby. This, as well as the redhead's shriek, caused both of the Winchesters to jump towards the door. Just as Dean reached for the knob, a heavy wing burst open. The woman collided with Dean at full speed, grabbed him with all her strength and didn't let go even when both of them were already on the sidewalk.

"Jeeesus!" whispered Dean, all the air squeezed out of his lungs. "Watch where you going, will you!"

"There's... there's _something_ there!" yelled Donna. "It has the Doctor!"

She put her hands on Dean's shoulders and shook him violently.

"It grabbed him and dragged him away!"

"Get off me!"

"What?"

"Get the fuck off me!"

"_O!_"

With visible dismay Donna got to her feet, in the process landing a knee in a pretty fragile part of man's anatomy. She dusted her pants and top.

"There's no bloody reason to swear," she said.

"The hell there isn't! You're dangerous, woman!" Dean stood up, still bent in half, elbows pressed tightly to his sides. "Did you see it?"

"Did you see the ghost?" added Sam, for sheer purpose of participating in conversation.

"I've seen _something_," answered Donna cautiously. "Not sure it was a ghost. Anyway, whatever it may be, it has the Doctor."

"No it hasn't" The Doctor stepped outside the theatre, squinting in bright sunlight. "I've tried to sonic it and then it was gone."

"How did you even know it was going to be here?" asked Sam. "I've been trying to locate it all morning..."

"Weeell, I've just gathered some information on anomalies in the region, then sort of... triangulated them... it's a bit difficult to explain... Then we came to this little town, and then I used the analyser to discern certain electromagnetic frequencies and biological traits of the creature. And that led me here."

"Biological?" interfered Dean. "It's a bloody _spook_."

"Yes, well, it isn't," said the Doctor. "Although I must say it baffles me a little. The way it vanished... I didn't find any energy transfer residue, not even an energy signature. It's as if it vanished into thin air."

"Well spooks will do that," snorted Dean.

"Let me check it," said Sam. He hesitated for a moment, looked at his brother, pain written clearly on his pale face, then handed the laptop to Donna. "Here, can you hold it?"

He entered the theatre's lobby, straining his eyes in the semidarkness of the room. He switched on an EMF reader and listened to its sharp trills. Red lights flashed on the device's screen.

"We have readings, ok!" he yelled towards the door.

"There's a relay station just round the corner," said the Doctor from behind his back. "Wouldn't that scramble your readings?"

"Yeah, it would." Sam sighed and switched off the EMF. "Damn!"

"You two seem to be pretty eager to catch this... ghost," the Doctor noticed.

"Two people have died already so, well, yeah, I'd like to catch the son of a bitch as soon as possible."

"Wait a minute, people have _died_? You think this creature have killed them? How?"

Sam shrugged his shoulders.

"They were... well, kinda... mashed... The official version is that they've fallen off passing planes. So when they've finally hit the ground... You can imagine...."

"No, I'd rather not." The Doctor grimaced. "And you think your... ghost is responsible for their deaths?"

"Yes."

"Look, in all my life, and we're talking almost a thousand years here, I haven't seen a ghost," said the Doctor. "On the other hand I've never seen such readings. It is almost as if the creature was out of tune with your reality; as if it was in a state of constant dimensional flux. Still, it can affect your world. Have you seen those little whirlwinds on the street?"

"Almost a thousand years?" Sam knitted his eyebrows.

"Well, yes. 905 to be precise. So, have you seen them?"

"You're 905 years old?"

"Yes, I am. The whirlwinds...?"

"Are you human?"

"No, I am not!" There was impatience in the Doctor's voice. "Humans do not live that long. Can we focus?"

"What _are_ you?"

"I'm a Time Lord." Sam's blank expression was a clear sign that some more explanation was needed. "I'm from a planet called Gallifrey. I travel through time and space. I'm a genius as well. Can we focus _now_?"

"I'm outa here," Sam turned on his heel and marched towards the door.

"Hey, wait!" The Doctor rushed behind him. "Listen, I really don't have time for this. I just need some information, which you guys have. I don't care if you're complete bonkers, believing in ghosts and demons, but we could..."

Sam stopped suddenly and turned towards him. He looked angry. The Doctor noticed suddenly how tall the young man was.

"Yes, I believe in demons!" Sam said. "I have reasons too. One of them killed my mum, my dad and my girlfriend. Another one took my brother to hell and tortured him for forty hell years! And yet another is trying to break seals holding Lucipher in his prison! So, yes, I believe in them! Hell, one day I may become one of them! You say you're not human? Well, so am I! Not completely, anyway! How's that for a proof?!"

The Doctor tilted his head. After a while he reached to the inner pocket of his suit, took out a small device, switched it on and pointed towards Sam. The device sang quietly and shone blue light.

"What's that?" asked Sam angrily.

"My sonic screwdriver," answered the Doctor inattentively, still probing the air around Sam's chest and head.

"A sonic _screwdriver_???"

"Well, yeah. Very useful."

"You're mad!"

"And you're right." The Doctor looked straight into Sam's eyes, serious look on his face. "Your DNA shows signs of manipulation. Oh, they're incredibly minute, almost indiscernible, but they're real. You're not entirely human, Sam Winchester."

Sam's shoulders sagged suddenly.

"It's demon's blood," he whispered. "God, I hate it!"

"Weeell, it makes you more resilient, supports your immune system, gives you the smarts, and certainly is responsible for your height. Don't see a reason you should complain about it."

"Try turning dark side. Becoming evil. Becoming one of _them_."

"We are all tempted by the dark side," said the Doctor quietly. "You don't have to have alien DNA mixed with your blood to become prone to evil. It's our choices that define us."

"Easy for you to say, Doctor," Sam sighed. "You don't have the end of the world to worry about."

"Several, actually." The Doctor switched off his sonic screwdriver. "Prevented them all. Don't wanna brag, but that's what I do. I travel and I help if I can. Did I mention I'm kinda clever?"

"A couple of times, yeah."

"Well, there's nothing there anymore. Let's go back to our companions."

"And then what?"

"Share our data?" The Doctor grinned. "Combine resources?"

"It may... not be so easy, Doctor. You must have noticed that my brother is... well, he's a little... socially awkward at times," said Sam.

"So is Donna," the Doctor laughed. "Good that _we_ can communicate."

"Alien to alien," sighed Sam.

Outside, Dean and Donna glared at each other with death rays sparkling in both pairs of greenish eyes.

"Well, yes, we decided to combine our efforts," said the Doctor, rubbing his hands together. "Seeing how you're coming together so nicely."

* * *

**To be continued...**


	4. The Second Sign of Dangerous Liaisons

* * *

**.4. The Second Sign of Dangerous Liaisons**

* * *

"Well, wasn't it awkward?"

"What?"

"They're complete nutjobs. This British couple. I mean – the Doctor? What a freak!"

"I kinda like them." Sam rolled on his back and put both hands under his head, staring at the motel's room ceiling.

"That's because you're a freak as well," stated Dean, stuffing his face with leftovers of a double cheese beef burger with onions.

"Dumbass," responded Sam immediately.

"An alien?" Dean wriggled his fingers slightly above his head imitating antennas. "Like, he's almost 1000 years old and travels in time and space in his wooden box? It's totally demented!"

"He seemed to be pretty professional, though," sighed Sam. "Things he could do? Dean, the guy's a genius. The way he triangulated that spook's position? I couldn't do it and he didn't even have a computer."

"So he's one of them idiot savants. You know; a Rain Man deal. Or rather a K-Pax, freaking schizo business."

"I don't know. I mean, I believed in Prot being an alien."

"Sammy, the guy was tripping! And his chick? The red-head? I mean, how weird was _she_?"

"Oh, I don't know. I think she had a crush on you, Dean."

The older of the Winchester brothers choked on a bit of beef burger. He was coughing for a moment, pointing accusatory finger at Sam.

"Don't even _say_ that!" he said finally. "She's... she's... she's _red_, for god sake! _Red_, Sam!"

"She seemed fierce," admitted Sam. "And she's smart. She's funny... She's not a busty Asian beauty," he finished with dawning understanding. "Well, she's not Asian," he chuckled.

"Anyway, she didn't..."

"O, yeah, she did."

"Sammy, they're both nutcrackers; totally! And we have more serious problems. We have an apocalypse approaching. Would you mind and focus on that?"

"Well, I could, but I'm sort of concerned about your sex life. Dean, a woman of your life is virtually throwing herself at you, and you say 'no'?"

"She's not a woman of my life!"

"She looked good on you."

"_Sam_!"

"Well she did."

"_Bitch_!" said Dean throwing an empty burger wrapper at his younger brother.

"_Jerk_!" Sam caught the wrapper and threw it back at him. "I'm just saying."

"Well, don't!" Dean jumped in his bed, turning to the side and pummelling his pillow to make it softer. He was still a bit sore in the spot Donna hit with her knee. She was as far from his ideal woman as it was possible; normally he wouldn't spare her a second look. Smart and funny? Who the hell needs _that_ in a chick?

"I'll be working with the Doctor tomorrow," said Sam to Dean's back. "We'll see if we can triangulate the spook's position again."

"I'll search the theatre," grumbled Dean.

"Good. Take Donna with you."

"Not in this life!"

"What did you say?"

"Nothing. Goodnight, Sammy."

"Sleep tight, Dean."

"Don't let bed bugs bite."

"No visions."

"No nightmares."

"Night, then."

A yawn.

* * *

**To be continued...**


	5. The World is a Funny Place

* * *

**.5. The World is a Funny Place**

* * *

"So, what's your poison?"

Donna looked up at Dean. She seemed tired, and her clothes looked awful – all stains and holes. She shook her hair off her shoulders.

"Dunno. A pint maybe. And something with a kick. I'm knackered."

Dean went to the bar and returned with a small tray precariously loaded with beer mugs and shot glasses. Donna grabbed the first glass even before the tray touched the table. She gulped the content down, pulled a face and fought for a breath a little.

"Just what I needed," she said a little wheezily.

Dean sat down opposite her in the dark corner of the bar. He took a swig from his glass, then washed it down with beer. His clothes were torn and stained as well.

"So that's what you usually do?" asked Donna.

"Yeah, more or less," said Dean gloomily.

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why would anybody want to do that? We've almost got killed. It wanted to rip you in half. It bit you. And it wanted to strangle me. Then all the chairs were flying in the air. And the fire? And there were those other ghosts; God, they looked horrible. You said you were hunters, you and your brother. It means you're looking for trouble. Do you get paid?"

"No."

"I thought so."

"It's sort of family business," said Dean. "Hunting things. Helping people. Our Dad... He was a hunter. He taught us everything he knew."

"But, look where it got you!" exclaimed Donna. "You've been to hell! Your brother turned into a freak!"

"Don't tell him I've told you," quickly interrupted Dean.

"Yeah, I won't." Donna looked inside her beer mug, suddenly thoughtful. "I shouldn't even ask you this," she sighed. "I mean, not _me_."

"It seems you are looking for trouble as well." Dean gave her a pale smile.

"Well, we don't, usually. The thing is – trouble finds us. Always. And then there's running, and confusion, and the end of the world, and then off we go, into another trouble. And he's always in a hurry. The Doctor. And I don't even get half of what he says."

"Yeah, tell me that. I have a real smartass for a brother."

"And he's... Oh, I love him to bits, but sometimes he's so... alien... He just says something, or does something, or even looks at me, and it's alien... And then I feel left behind. Again."

"How did you two hooked up?"

Donna shrugged.

"I was supposed to marry a real wanker," she said. "Then the Doctor happened. Lance was eaten by baby spiders. We drained the Thames. There was this gigantic arachnid empress. Santas with guns. Exploding Christmas tree decorations. Can you imagine how scary it was?"

"No, not really." Dean gave her a look.

"See. That's what I mean. You can't even tell anybody, because it's so frigging weird. It just sounds bonkers. But when you're there, it's terrifying, and huge, and sad, and funny, and crazy and... I don't even know what."

"So you decided to be his companion?"

"No I didn't. Well, not at first." Donna had another shot and a long swig of beer before she continued. "You have this normal life, Dean, a life full of Eastenders, and temp jobs, and packed lunches, and texts and trivia. You meet your mates in a pub on a Friday night, and you go shopping on Saturday. You quarrel with your mum and you wish you'd moved from home, but money is always too tight and you just postpone everything from one year to another. You're constantly dieting and you're binge eating when diets don't work. You're not pretty, not smart, not important. You're nobody. And you're supposed to stay this way."

Dean was quiet.

"And then something like that happens. The end of the world. And the sheer fact that you survived... kinda changes everything. But... it's still too strange, too distant from reality. So, well, when he asked me, I said 'no.' I just wanted to go home and have a good cry. And he was gone. And I was looking for him ever since."

"Looks like you've found him."

"I have." Donna smiled. "Haven't I?"

"So, what's changed?"

"Oh, _I've_ changed. And then I've changed some more. But the things I've seen! I've met Agatha Christie. I've been to Pompeii – volcano day! Went to Ood Sphere! Fought Daleks! Had my head stuffed with the Doctor's knowledge! I saved the world, Dean; me – Donna Noble from Chiswick, London – saved the universe! All of them, to be precise. You just don't turn back and walk away from it. You can't."

"You saved the universe?" Dean gave her the look again.

"I know." Donna chuckled. "_Wizard_!"

"I've killed the yellow eyed demon," said Dean. "The one that did that to Sammy. Doesn't even compare."

He grabbed another shot glass.

"Dean, from what you've told me, you had been living on the frontline, every day since you were a kid, watching over your little brother and fighting monsters! I was a fat, stupid cow. You were a hero! You still are! And it may be my whisky talking, but you're kinda cute." Donna hiccupped a little. "Yeah, that's definitely my whisky talking."

"He doesn't look alien," murmured Dean after a while.

"He has two hearts," said Donna.

"You're joking!"

"No. Binary cardiovascular system. Saved his life recently."

"What else has he two of?"

"Oi!" Donna punched Dean on the shoulder. "Watch it!"

"And how are you his 'companion'?"

"As in 'travelling together'. As in 'keeping company'. Pretty old fashioned way of keeping company as well."

"No intimate relations?"

"He's an alien, Dean. He's a spaceman. And I don't think he thinks of me this way. Oh, bugger it, why would he?!"

"I don't know; 'cause you're funny? Smart? Brave? Honest?" Dean stopped and shook his head. "Yeah, and that's _my_ whisky talking."

Donna hiccupped again.

"He used to have this girlfriend," she said, words a little blurry. "She was _blonde_."

"Ow!" Dean toasted her with another shot. "And where is she?"

"Different dimension. Unless another catastrophe happens, he can't even see her again. And, anyway, she has somebody."

"It's a drag," said Dean. "I had this girl once, 'bout eight years ago. And she has a kid. I thought he was mine, but he wasn't. But, even so... you know, the kid is great and she's hot. She's all sorts of hot and spicy. It's just with me going to hell, and Castiel dragging me back; and then Sam screwing Ruby and honing his Dark Lord skills; and Lilith breaking the seals... You just don't have time for relationships. I would have sucked, anyway. Never stayed anywhere long enough. Use them and loose them – that's Dean Winchester."

"You certainly look the part," admitted Donna. "Hot and dangerous."

"You think so?"

"Yeaaah..."

"You know, it's weird." Dean pulled a face. "The way I can talk to you. I'm spilling my guts here and it's definitely a chicks' flick moment, but it doesn't seem awkward at all."

"Oh, pull yourself together, Dean, you big softie!" Donna laughed. "We have some serious drinking to do here."

"Right. Drinking." Dean washed down another shot with a sip of beer. "You are hot too. Your hair... It's awesome."

"It's ginger."

"No, it's... like a fire... you're like a fire... You're a hell of a woman, Donna."

"You're a hell of a man, Dean."

"Let's drink to that."

"Let's."

A few shots later, with her head resting on a table top, Donna muttered quietly:

"World is a funny place, y'know? A funny little world it is. The way people sort of run into each other... as if it was written somewhere. This is brilliant! I bloody love this funny little world."

That was when the angel appeared.

* * *

**To be continued...**


	6. The Flutter of Angelic Wings

* * *

**.6. The Flutter of Angelic Wings**

* * *

Castiel looked tired, as usual. His trench coat was crumpled; so was his face. Clear, brilliantly blue eyes were surrounded by dark circles. His hair was messy and his shoulders were sagging. He didn't look like a Messenger of God. He looked like an overstressed tax accountant who just had been fired.

"Dean," he said curtly.

"Cass," answered Dean. "What's up?"

"Are you drunk?"

"Are you blind?"

"Where did _he_ come from?" asked Donna.

"Donna, meet Castiel, the angel. Cass, meet Donna Noble."

Castiel's eyes grew large as his jaw dropped. He looked at Donna with pure horror.

"What is she doing here?"

"I'm having a pint with Dean here, thank you," snapped Donna. "Well, several pints. And a couple of shots."

"You are not supposed to be here, Donna Noble," whispered Castiel. "I am not supposed to be talking to you."

"Why?"

"You put it all in danger. There is a plan. You don't fit in it."

"And you've just scared the shit of my angelic friend. I think I love you," said Dean getting up from his chair.

Castiel moved his stubborn gaze to Dean's face. Donna thought that the angel was pretty short for a Messenger of God. Nevertheless, there was strength in him, like a coiled serpent, ready to strike.

"Is he with her? The Doctor?"

"He's with Sam," answered Dean. "They're looking for lore on this spook. You know, the mushy bodies spook."

"You are not to engage in it," ordered Castiel. "Leave this case. Now. Before it's too late."

"Wait, there's a spook that kills people by smashing them to bits, and we are supposed to leave it? It's our job, Cass. We're not leaving it until he's dusted."

"You are supposed to be someplace else," said the angel sternly. "As it is written. Their presence is causing disturbances. This man, the Doctor, he's a meddler. He twists time, he bends reality. He already..."

"He already what?" asked Donna.

"You are an anomaly." Castiel's gaze moved slowly towards Donna. "You do not belong here. There was a plan for you too, but it had been altered, and now you are causing alternations wherever you appear."

"How do I not belong here?" shouted Donna. "It's my world!"

"Not anymore."

"What?" Both Donna and Dean shook their heads in disbelief.

"Enough of that." Castiel turned back towards Dean. It might have been an illusion, but it seemed that the angel's pale lips trembled. "Dean, you have to meet with Bobby. That's what you do. That's your story. Leave them and go. Take Sam with you. God knows what damages have been done already. Just pack your bags and go."

"No."

"Dean." Castiel took a deep breath before he continued. "You are trouble enough. You are stubborn and moody, and you have no idea what you want to do with your life. Then there's Sam. I just... There are rules, Dean, and I have to follow them. It seems that all I do is covering your back. For all the things you've done, all the people you've saved, you are still a sorry burden I have to drag. I thought you'd be better at following orders."

"Yeah, that part of my life is sort of dead," grumbled Dean. "You're not my Daddy."

There was a fluttering sound and a dark, wing shaped shadow appeared for a moment behind Castiel's shoulders. Donna held her breath.

"Now he's gonna tell me, they will push me back into hell he dragged me from," commented Dean, completely unfazed. "It only works once, to be honest."

"No, I'm not going to say that." The shadow disappeared. "All I'm going to say is – hurry. This place, these... people... are not meant to be a part of your life. Follow my advice for once, and leave."

"And you, Donna Noble," he looked at her again, little smile in corners of his mouth. "Don't tell the Doctor about me. Let it be a surprise, when the time comes."

And he was gone.

* * *

**To be continued...**


	7. The Third Sign of Dangerous Liaisons

* * *

**.7. The Third Sign of Dangerous Liaisons**

* * *

Donna opened her eyes and for a long moment just stared. There were little cowboys painted on a ceiling. There were little cowboys printed on the curtains. There were saloon doors leading to the toilet. It definitely wasn't the TARDIS.

Then she looked to her left and saw Dean's face, just an inch from hers.

She shrieked and sat up, hands full of bed sheets she desperately pulled up to cover herself.

Dean blinked and lifted his head from the pillow. He had a bit of a dribble in the corner of his mouth. His sleepy eyes moved up and down Donna, then they sort of expanded, as he jumped backwards, falling out of the bed.

"Jeeesus!"

"Did we..." Donna's throat was completely dry. "Did we... do... _that_?"

"I... we... I don't remember," answered Dean from the floor. "Do you...?"

"I've no idea. Do you have your pants on?"

"Do you?"

Very slowly Donna looked down, under the sheet.

"Oh, God!"

"What?"

"I don't think we did... it," she said. "I'm dressed... Sort of... You?"

"Eeerm... not so much. Can I have that?"

"Sure." She handed him bed covers, at the same time hiding behind a pillow. "Have you seen my top?"

"No. Have you seen my... everything?"

"I have your T-shirt."

"Can you pass it to me?"

"You have to find my top first. Cause I can't find my bra."

"Jeeesus!"

"Ok, we've been both drunk. We've been too drunk to do... anything. I've been so drunk I dreamed there was an angel in the bar."

"Well, there was Castiel..." Dean's head emerged from behind the bed. "After that, all seems... kind of blurry."

"Well I hope you didn't like me the way I liked you," said Donna. "Because if you did..."

"I _like_ you, Donna. It's just..."

"Very awkward, I know."

She found her top and her bra twisted together under the second pillow.

"Right, don't look now."

There was a knock on the door. Donna gasped and quickly pulled her top over her head.

"Oh my God, o my God, o my God!" she whispered.

"Donna, are you there?"

It was the Doctor's voice.

"O... MY... GOD!" mouthed Donna.

"Dean? Dean, wake up. What've happened to everybody?"

On her tip toes Donna sneaked to the toilet, opened a small window and wriggled through, falling hardly into high weeds outside. She circled the motel building, stopped for a while to tidy her hair and smeared makeup, then walked to the Dean's room door and knocked loudly.

"Come in."

She entered, heart pounding. The Doctor looked at her briefly.

"Donna. Where have you been? I've been looking everywhere."

"I've just... I went out..." murmured Donna, trying not to look at Dean, who was still partially dressed, and visibly distressed.

"What happened?" Donna asked.

"We think we know who, or what, the ghost is," answered the Doctor. "You are going to like it, Dean."

He walked across the room, turned, stopped and with wrinkled brow stared at the floor for a good while. Donna looked as well and saw her flip flop sandal, buried in a little pile of Dean's clothes. She felt a hot flush colouring her cheeks.

"Yes," the Doctor cleared his throat. "Right then. A ghost. Can... can we meet in the dinner in about an hour?"

"Yes. Sure," said Dean weakly.

"Doctor, are you all right?" asked Donna.

He looked at her quizzically, head slightly tilted, brown eyes wide.

"I'm always all right," he answered.

Which meant he really wasn't.

* * *

**To be continued...**


	8. Ruby in the Smoke

_Oh, (SPOILER) poor Sammy! How am I supposed to be funny when I feel so sorry for him :(? Ah, well, I think I just forget about last episodes of Supernatural I saw, and write the Winchesters the way I like them most. The same goes to my favourite couple (Oh, they will tell you they are NOT a couple/NOT married/NOT involved, but don't you believe a word they're saying:D). And, this story contains some SPOILERS to my Doctor Who Virtual Series Five, the most obvious - Donna and the Doctor together, alive and kicking. Sorry:D_

_Disclaimer: However brilliant this story may be, the characters of the Doctor, Donna Noble, Sam and Dean Winchester, Castiel and Ruby are not mine. And there's no profit involved. If there was one, I'd be rich already:D:D:D_

* * *

**.8. Ruby In The Smoke**

* * *

Everybody tried to get a good look at the screen of Sam's laptop positioned on the table top between the four of them. As a result the laptop was being moved and pushed around the table, leaving virtually no space for their breakfasts. Therefore Dean held his plate on his lap, quickly devouring scrambled eggs and bacon on toasts. As the Doctor turned the laptop again, giving him a nice view of its worn casing, Dean swallowed most of scrambled eggs and sputtered the rest asking:

"So, did you two find something or not?"

"There is some lore on unnatural disasters," said Sam. "Floods, tornados, fires; sometimes they appear out of nowhere, as if invoked by a spell. Which would suggest supernatural intervention."

"A demon?"

"Usually. Alternatively an angel."

"An angel?" Donna repeated. She was unusually quiet that morning, drinking her milky tea with a guilty look on her face.

"Yes, and a pissed one for that matter," said Sam, wry little smile in the corners of his mouth. For a moment his eyes turned cold as is reflecting some wild stormy clouds passing overhead. He shook his head. "But this is different. All the signs – they're just... far out. We've investigated the ghost in the theatre..."

"Ghosts, actually," interrupted the Doctor. "Or _beings_, to be precise."

"Anyway, nobody died there," continued Sam. "No one. Not a single soul. There is no data on unnatural deaths in this spot even before the theatre was built."

"So how..."

"There are other haunted places in the area. Some buildings, an old cemetery – they have several mildly interfering ghosts in and nearby Summit Creek. None of them dangerous or homicidal, though. It seems that spooks were spooked out of their usual haunts and hid in the theatre."

"All of them?" asked Donna. "Is it even possible?"

"I didn't think it was. Spooks are sort of tied to spots where they died. Sometimes they choose to haunt other areas, but they are not able to leave them. They tethered to distinct locations – houses, cemeteries, hospitals, prisons, you name them. Some of them follow specific objects – paintings, elements of furniture, cars, toys, mirrors; things which had been important to them at some point of their lives. They may follow such objects to new locations, but I've checked and nothing had been moved into the theatre recently. On the contrary, it had been almost completely emptied a few months ago."

"But me and Dean..." Donna hesitated for a while, a quick glance towards the Doctor. "We saw them."

"So did we. And I actually recognised two of them. Angelina Prow." Sam opened the window with a photograph of a sad young woman with large dark eyes, and turned the laptop again to show it to Donna. "And Justus Blaine." Old, sepia coloured photograph of a bulky man wearing old-fashioned clothes. "Angelina used to haunt the cemetery weeping after her husband who died in Vietnam in 1969; she was known as the Lady with Flowers. Always with a bunch of carnations – apparently she liked them. Justus was often seen near the creek. He was supposedly murdered there by a business partner in early 20ties. He was haunting the spot ever since."

"So how could they leave their haunts?" Dean asked.

"I've no idea. All I know is they are frightened and very dangerous."

"Spooked spooks," Dean grinned at his brother. "And they haven't even recognised _us_ yet."

Donna's eyes met his eyes quickly; then they moved to the Doctor. He didn't even mention that it was _him_ the monsters were afraid of. No _I'm the Doctor/The Oncoming Storm/Look me up_ stuff this time. Weird.

The Winchester brothers sank into discussion about possibilities of ghostly relocation, so Donna leaned across the table, towards the Doctor.

"You're quiet," she noticed.

"Yeaaaah," sighed the Doctor. "I am."

"Do you think... you think they could be actual _ghosts_?" she whispered.

"I think they are imprints," said the Doctor as quietly. "Do you remember the neural relays saving the echo of the person after their death?"

"How could I forget?" It was a memory Donna wasn't particularly attached to; unfortunately it had been returned to her as a part of the complete remembrance package. "_Ghosting_. Talking about ice creams and shoe laces. Bloody cruel, if you ask me."

"Well, I was thinking..." said the Doctor and fell quiet.

"Yes?" asked Donna after a while.

"Sorry, what?"

"You were thinking..."

"I do that, don't I?"

"_Doctor_!"

"_What_?"

"You said they were imprints," Donna said impatiently. "Imprints of what? Imprints _in_ what?"

"Imprints of emotions? I dunno, of thoughts maybe. Some sort of basic personality engrams, slowly degrading after an original host's death? Who knows? I'm beginning to believe that some places here on Earth offer an energetic structure capable of intercepting and sustaining such imprints... well, not infinitely, but for a very long time. Hundreds of years, in some cases."

"_Ghosts_," whispered Donna in awe. "You are starting to believe in _ghosts_."

"What? _No_! I said imprints. Shadows. Just... just like footprints left in clay and then petrified, preserved, fossilised through the ages. They have no consciousness of their own, they are mere reflections. They are no spirits, no lost souls. Just footprints in clay of reality."

"Actually, that's pretty close to what _we_ call ghosts."

Donna swivelled in her seat. She almost forgot about Sam and Dean sitting next to them. For a moment she was there alone with the Doctor. As she was supposed to be.

"And yet you use holy water and silver bullets to get rid of them," the Doctor grumbled.

"Rock salt and iron. And it's not so easy to get rid of them. Usually we have to find the remains, salt them and burn them," explained Sam.

"Salt them?" Donna raised her eyebrows. "How is spicing and barbecuing a method of ghost disposal? Shouldn't you, I don't know, exorcise them?"

"You exorcise demons, Donna. Rock salt, iron and fire have purifying qualities. Why do you think witches were burned at the stake?"

"Because witch hunters were _bloody stupid_?" she snarled.

"No, they weren't," Dean pursed his lips. "Have you ever met a witch?"

"I have!" The Doctor brightened for a brief moment, just to sink into his gloominess a while later. "She weren't exactly a witch. She was a Carrionite. Looked like a witch, though. Had a cauldron and all. Tried to kill me."

"Been there, seen that, did not care about T-shirts," said Dean.

"Have you ever met a Carrionite?"

"If she was one, she didn't tell me. Oh, Sammy, I think you should ask your little Ruby if she used to be a Carrionite. Whatever _that_ means."

"I did _not_!"

Everybody jumped in their seats.

"Don't... _do_... that..." gasped Dean, turning towards slim, black-haired woman, standing next to their table, arms folded on her chest, dark eyes sparkling. "Clear your throat, or something. Wear a bell?"

"I hear you had a little spat with Castiel," said the woman completely unfazed. "Didn't he tell you to pack your bags and go?"

"What, now you're working together? Castiel and Ruby, Flutter and Brimstone – such a nice name for a joint-venture."

"We're _not_ working together," emphasized Ruby. "Well maybe we are, in a way that we're both trying to save your sorry asses. Didn't Castiel tell you not to interfere with these people?"

"You mean, with us?" asked Donna.

Ruby didn't even look at her. She was staring at Dean; black, deep eyes burning with inner fire. After a while she looked at Sam and something in her eyes shifted; maybe it was just a reflection of light in a chrome bar railing; but Donna could swear that the fire in Ruby's eyes exploded with unexpected intensity.

"This is not your business," Ruby said slowly. "You're wasting your time."

"It's ours to waste, thank you," growled Dean.

"You're going to _die_!" Ruby uncrossed her arms and leaned over the table, black hair curtaining her face. "You are dying here, both of you, stupid jerks! That's what Castiel was trying to tell you!"

"How did _he_ know?" / "All of us?" / "Sorry, but... who are you?" / "Did he tell you that?" / "Me and the Doctor as well?" / "Who is Castiel?" / "And how would _you_ know?" Their voices blurred into excited ding.

"Oh, shut up!" yelled Ruby. "Shut your holes, all of you!"

And now her eyes were black; completely, absolutely black – two dangerous fissures in the known world. She blinked and the blackness was gone. Donna felt a shiver running down her spine.

"Who are you?" repeated the Doctor, leaning forward in his seat to get a better look at the black haired woman. "_What_ are you?"

"Isn't that just sweet?" Ruby shook her head. "With this accent you're supposed to be a gentleman."

"Was I rude again? Sorry. Didn't mean to... But, who...?"

"Ruby, don't you dare!" said Dean, harsh notes in his voice.

She just smiled without any joy.

"Don't worry. I'm gone already. I don't stick with fools... Sam...?"

"Yes?"

"You're goin' with me?"

The younger brother blinked and turned his eyes away. There was a long moment of hesitation before he made himself answer abruptly:

"No."

"Fine!" She turned with a shrug. "Just don't come running to me for help when your bro gets gutted. He dies first, I reckon. Slow death. Shouldn't have eaten his breakfast. Makes things worse. At least you die quickly. Still, you have to watch all of them go first. Can't be pleasant. But then again, you've been warned."

"Ruby, stop it!" yelled Dean.

She swivelled on her heel, giving him a fiery look.

"I deserve to be listened to!"

"You deserve to be sent back to hell, fast track," Dean said. His cheeks and lips were pale, his fists were clenched. "I trusted you..."

"Poor little Dean and his trust issues," Ruby mocked. "It's not about you. Not this time. It's about who's left standing when the battle's over. So don't give me your warrior of God attitude."

"You bitch!"

"Back at you!"

"Dean..."

"Don't, Sam! Just, don't!"

"I think we should take a walk," said the Doctor quietly in Donna's ear. He grabbed her hand and got up quickly.

"Dean, we should listen to her..."

"Yeah, just like you've been listening to her all the time I was in..."

"I was trying to get you out!"

"You were trying for Dark Arts Academy!"

"They have their problems, obviously." The Doctor was dragging Donna along towards the exit. "We'll be back when they've finished."

"Fine then, go!" shouted Ruby, top of her voice. "The four of you, just go!"

She looked at each and every one of them in turn, speaking with spite:

"The Soldier. The Meddler. The Anomaly. And the Devil's Own. Go. All of you. Go and fall into the crack. Just go away and die."

The Doctor stopped so suddenly Donna walked into him.

"What did you just say?"

* * *

**To be continued...**

* * *


	9. Who Do Spooked Spooks Fear?

_Disclaimer: I absolutely own Angelina Prow, Justus Blaine, drowned lady and a few other ghosts. Sammy, Dean, Donna and Doc are not mine. Still, I'm not going to break them, am I?_

* * *

**.9. Who Do Spooked Spooks Fear?**

* * *

"She's a demon?"

Donna walked towards Dean. She touched his shoulder gently.

"Is that what you're trying to tell me? She is a demon and she has this horrible power over Sam? So... what, you have this close relationship with an angel and he has one with the devil?"

"I... I wouldn't call it a relationship," murmured Dean. "It's... complicated."

"Angels and demons." Donna laughed. "Doesn't it sound a bit like a current cinema programme? Dan Brown? No?"

"Look... Donna..." Dean started, but she would not let him finish.

"She knows things. This _thing_ with us. She knows it. And she knows the Doctor and me. It's just... It is too weird."

"She's not hum..."

"She's a demon, I understand. Still... The names she gave us. You're the Soldier. The Doctor's the Meddler. Sam's the Devil's Own. And I am..."

"The Anomaly," finished Dean.

"The thing is – I am." Donna bit her lower lip. "I am the Anomaly. I think I've always been. But... It's just so cruel. She was just cruel. Did she want to, I dunno, scare us? Warn us? And shouldn't we listen to the warning if we hear it from _both_ sides?"

"We have a job to do." Dean turned to her, a sawn-off in his hand. "Let's just do it!"

"She said we were going to die."

"I don't care."

"I've noticed."

Donna looked towards Sam and the Doctor, setting up some weird looking equipment on a dusty theatre's floor. The younger Winchester seemed completely preoccupied with wires and duct tape, but she noticed furtive glances he was casting at Dean. There was something going on between the two brothers, and Donna knew it wasn't just brotherly love. For a moment she felt completely out of place. She sighed.

"This is no good."

"You're forgetting something," said Dean. "People have died. This isn't about angels and demons; this is not about Sam and me, or you and the Doctor. It's about them."

"Yeah, well, you're certainly right, but..."

"There!"

The Doctor was up and running now, a bleeping device in his hand. He looked so... well, so _normal_, with his hair a mess, his black-rimmed glasses askew and an expression of anticipation, almost a _glee_, on his face. Donna laughed. The Doctor halted for a while, giving her a look.

"What?"

"Nothing. Just... carry on. What's that suppose to do anyway?"

"Well, it's basically an amplifier; pretty straightforward it is. If there's any residual emotional energy in this place, it'll boost it, so that we'll be able to see... that..."

Donna turned her gaze to where he was looking. There was a woman standing there – a pale, dark-haired woman, a bunch of pink carnations in her hands. Her image seemed oddly distorted, blinking in and out of existence repeatedly, making Donna slightly dizzy just looking at her.

"Right," said Dean, circling her slowly, rock salt loaded sawn-off at the ready. "Angelina I presume?"

The ghost sighed and turned her face towards him.

"Help me," she whispered. There was much pain and fear in her voice. There was also a weird distortion to the sound, sort of a slightly unreal quality, making Donna's skin tingle. She moved closer to the Doctor and grabbed the sleeve of his coat.

"A ghost!" she yelled in a whisper. "I don't believe it! Real as life! I mean, I've seen them; flying chairs and fire, and all that, and it was all sort of blurred and unreal. But she talks! And she's a ghost!"

"An imprint," the Doctor corrected.

"No, but... she's here! She's real! I can hear her! I can hear a ghost!"

"Help me," Angelina repeated.

"You shouldn't be here," said Sam. He moved towards the ghost, but Dean stopped him with his outstretched arm. Sam gave him a slightly irritated look. "It's not your place. Why did you leave the cemetery?"

"He's devouring us," said Angelina. She opened her fingers, letting carnations fall to the floor. Flowers touched dusty planks and dissolved immediately. "He's killing us."

"Who?"

"That's amazing!" The Doctor pointed the amplifier at her, his fingers flying over its buttons. "It's sentient!"

"It's a woman. It's _her_," said Donna angrily.

"Well, technically it's just a..."

"Who's killing you?" repeated Sam.

"The monster," moaned Angelina. "The abnormality."

"Who is it?" asked Dean. "The abnormality, what is that?"

"He came from the outside. He slid through the hole. A howling abyss. Darkness, darkness, fear. He's killing us!"

"Help us!" There were other ghosts there now as well; one that Donna recognised as an unfortunate businessman Justus Blaine, and a few others, men and women, all terrified, all flickering oddly, all begging them for help. Dean was turning slowly on the spot, trying to somehow point his shotgun at all of them at once. Sam had an expression of sorrow and concentration on his face. The Doctor was in heaven; his strange device probing the air around the apparitions as he was running wildly from one room's corner to the other. Donna's heart was breaking. She blinked quickly to stop herself from crying and sniffed loudly.

"We will. I swear, we will!"

"Can you tell us more?" insisted Sam, so totally in control now, it made Donna a bit uncomfortable; she used to think Dean was a head of the Winchester's team. "We need details. Who is he? How can we find him?"

"He's wrong," said Justus Blaine. "So wrong."

"Yeah, 'cause you're _so_ right," mocked Dean quietly.

"He's pain," added another ghost.

"He's not a man," said a ghost lady, her white dress in rags, long hair dripping wet. "He's a monster."

"How is he killing you?" asked Sam.

"Right, because you're dead already, actually," the Doctor chipped in. Donna shot him a killer glance. He shrugged. "Well, they _are_."

"Makes us weak. Drains us. Ooh, it hurts," Angelina whined. "It hurts so much. He's so thirsty. He can't be quenched."

"Just... just calm down," said Sam. "We'll try to help."

"Will we?" asked Dean. "Sammy, that's not what we do. We don't _help_ them. We..."

"I know who you are." Justus turned to him. "Hunters. I know the markings. I know your smell. Did a bunch of you in, I did. It's in the past though. Doesn't matter now. We need your help. Please, help us."

"Why should we?" Dean pointed his sawn-off at Justus's midriff. "Why should we save a bunch of bloody spooks?"

Justus met his gaze without hesitation.

"She's not hurting anyone," he pointed at Angelina. "Most of them, they benign. It's strange, how I wasn't aware of it before, but now I know. I understand. I see why I am here; I know what I've done. Waste me, if you want, just save them."

"The energy, it's just incredible!" exclaimed the Doctor. "Whatever has happened here, there was a definite energy boost that stabilised their engrams. They've become sentient shadows and that's... that's unbelievable! For all intents and purposes we are dealing with conscious imprints!"

"Ghosts," Donna whispered.

"What energy boost?" Sam asked. "What has happened to you?"

"There was this surge, this calling in the wind," said Angelina. She crossed her hands on her chest, as if cold. "Then the hole appeared. We all went to see. It was calling us from all around the place. Just calling. We had to go. We could not resist."

"There was a fire burning," continued the wet-haired woman. "A flaming path. The sky opened and spat on earth. It kept us warm."

"It plummeted down. It crashed. And then the monster emerged," Angelina sobbed. "And it devoured us. It is so hungry. So thirsty. It never stops."

"We've been far enough to break away," added Justus. "We all ran. We kept together. We hid. But it has followed."

"Please, help us!"

"This... is... _wizard_!" the Doctor wheezed. He blinked quickly, shot a sideways glance at Donna and cleared his throat. "I mean it's... erm... brilliant?"

"In what way?" Donna snorted and all the ghosts turned their eyes at the Doctor.

"Well, something has given them... you... awareness," the Doctor said. "Something's made you real! Isn't it great?"

"It is killing them, Doctor," Donna growled.

"Yes, well, inconvenient, true, but..."

The barrel of Dean's shotgun jerked up in his hands, as he let go of the trigger. He rested the sawn-off on his shoulder and sighed deeply.

"Nothing's simple these days, is it?" he grumbled. "Angels with hidden agendas, demons with bleeding hearts, good werewolves and honest thieves. World's just gone a one, big, fucking oxymoron!"

"Didn't know you even..." Sam restrained himself with difficulty. "Erm, doesn't matter."

"What?!" Dean shrugged. "What?!"

"Nothing," Sam looked away, eyes wide. "_Oxymoron_ though...?"

"You think I'm an idiot!"

"No. I don't."

"Yes. You do. Well I know _things_!"

"I've never said you..."

"Ooops!" said the Doctor. Both Winchesters turned to him, angry and happy at the same time.

"What?"

"I've got an upsurge!" the Doctor yelled.

"Maybe you should keep it to yourself." Dean chuckled dryly.

"On my detector!" the Doctor shouted. "Energy surge! Something's coming!"

"What something?" asked Donna. Her words were drowned by a sudden buzz of ghosts' voices. They were flickering madly now; one second burning bright white, the other almost disappearing. Angelina Prow reached her hands to Donna, as if trying to grab her.

"It's coming!" she wailed. "Oh, God, it's coming! Help us! Help us!"

"Help us!" lamented other ghosts. "Save us!"

"Do something!" bellowed Justus. "Do _something_... please!"

"_It's coming_!" shrieked Angelina, and then there was silence.

* * *

**To be continued with slightly more noise...**

* * *


	10. The Hole in the World

* * *

**.10. The Hole in the World**

* * *

It didn't have any distinct shape, at least not at first. Just a swirl of darkness emerging from a space in-between normal dimensions. It was there, and yet it seemed to be approaching their world from an unbelievable distance. There was a long, horrible, coughy whine that drilled into their brains like a five-inch-long screw. All the ghosts flickered out immediately, to reappear in the corners of the dusty theatre; silent now; dark hollow eyes wide with primal fear. The device in the Doctor's hands spurted a bright stream of sparks and died with a hiss. All the elements of the apparatus on the floor exploded one after another in an unstoppable chain reaction. Dean's shotgun went off, the Doctor dropped his useless energy amplifier, Donna shrieked, and Sam jumped in front of them all, raising his arm, hand open, as if the sheer gesture could stop whatever was coming.

The weirdest thing was – it _did_ stop.

The darkness swirled and bulged, held at bay by the younger Winchester. The Doctor gasped quietly and reached for his sonic screwdriver. Donna took cover behind his back; a corner of her mind moaning about the slimness of such barricade. Dean kept pumping bullets into the cloud of darkness; ricochets whizzing madly around. Sam trembled with extortion, his eyes screwed, teeth gritting. A rivulet of blood trickled suddenly from his nostril, across his pale lips, and down his chin. Sam faltered, staggered back, one hand still restraining the smoke, another pressed to his temple. He groaned with pain.

"Sam?!" yelled Dean. "Sammy, no!"

"I can hold it!" the younger Winchester wheezed. "But not for long! Just... get outa here! Run!"

"Not bloody likely!" Dean reloaded and moved closer to his brother. "I'm not leaving you!"

Sam moaned painfully and dropped to his knees. Donna shrieked from behind the Doctor's shoulder. The Doctor probed the air with his sonic screwdriver. Dark cloud howled, whined and coughed. It elongated, part of it still kept at bay by Sam's efforts, the other part stretching upwards and then cumulating above their heads like a black, menacing smoke layer. Ready to fall down on their heads; to smother them to death with its oily folds.

"It's a..." The Doctor's words were lost in the horrific noise the creature made. He shook his head and grabbed Donna's wrist. She had to read his lips to understand: "Run, Donna! Run for your life!"

"What about them?" she shouted back, pointing at Sam, kneeling now with both hands outstretched in front of him, eyes turned upwards and flashing wide half-moons of sclera, blood gushing from his nostrils. "It's killing him!"

Dean must have come to the same conclusion, as he dropped the useless shotgun and wrapped his arms around Sam's chest, trying to lift him up from the floor and possibly drag him away to safety. In a blink of an eye Sam's body went limp, lifeless, his head rolling on his shoulders. He slumped in his brother's grip – a dead weight dragging them both down.

The cloud reared, spurted multiple tentacles and started lashing at them with vicious spite. One of the tentacles slashed across Sam's face and a new gush of blood started dripping down on his chest. The younger Winchester opened his eyes and groaned in pain. Dean shouted something unrecognisable, and moved quickly, pushing Sam down, swapping places. The tentacle lashed at his back, ripping his khaki coloured jacket and a brown T-shirt. Dean cried out and swirled, facing the enemy...

And then all of it gained even more momentum, while slowing down to almost frame-by-frame speed in Donna's eyes, as if she was watching stills of the events in front of her; allowing her to notice all the detail, but not giving her enough time for reaction. The Doctor jumped forward, his sonic flashing blue light. Dean turned towards the mass of tentacles writhing above him. Sam fell hard on his back, his face covered with blood, but his eyes open, aware and terrified. The Doctor pointed the sonic screwdriver at the vicious cloud. Dean managed to half-rise from the floor, still on one knee, right hand reaching towards the sheath fixed to his calf. A dozen or more tentacles shot towards him, just as Dean produced a long, jagged knife, and moved his arm in a wide, circular gesture, cutting through the smoke, and leaving behind wide, glowing gashes. The sonic gave away a sharp trill. Two tentacles pushed through Dean's defence and stabbed at him wildly. He twisted away from one of them, but the other reached him and seared through this body, pinning him to the floor. Sam yelled and outstretched his hand again, forcing his mind-power to resurface through the haze of dizziness. Dean coughed up a good amount of blood, spraying new freckles onto his pale cheeks. The sonic's trill exploded with a mad crescendo. All went iridescent white.

And then the monster was gone.

Donna swayed and fell down on her knees. She was under the impression that she would move on all fours till the end of her days, as her legs felt jelly-like and numb. She crawled slowly towards Dean, sprawled on the floor in the puddle of his own blood. Sam, being closer to his brother, got to him first, and applied pressure to a wound in Dean's stomach. Donna handed him a little white jacket, she was wearing over her sea-blue top. Sam folded it and pressed to Dean's wound.

The Doctor was the only one left standing. The sonic screwdriver in his hand still sang excitedly.

"We have seconds!" he yelled. "That pushed it away, but it'll be back!"

"Dean?!" groaned Sam. "Jesus, Dean! Talk to me, man! Just talk to me!"

"S...he... she said that he... he'd be f...first..." Donna stuttered. "Oh, my God, oh, my God, _oh, my God_! It can't be happening!"

"Dean, just hold on, OK? Just hold on!"

"We need to get out of here!"

"_Oh, my God, Dean_!"

"Don't you dare to die on me! You hear me?! Don't you _dare_!"

Angelina, Justus, the Drowned Lady and other apparitions moved closer, pale and flickering, their hands pressed to their hearts and mouths. Now Sam, Dean, Donna and the Doctor were in the middle of their circle.

"Don't just stare!" howled Sam. "Help him!"

"Sam, they're just ghosts," Donna whispered.

The puddle of Dean's blood was spreading quickly.

"Oh, fuck!" Sam swore desperately. "Oh, Dean!"

"It's coming back!" The Doctor checked his sonic screwdriver and turned towards them quickly. "We need to shift!"

"Dean!"

"Doctor!"

The Doctor halted suddenly.

"It's _here_!"

All the ghosts yelled in unison, as the old theatre building cracked and trembled. The walls bent inwards sending splinters across the room. Donna gasped, suddenly light-headed, as if there was not enough oxygen in the air she was breathing. Then the floor shook and the walls flew away. There they were, in the eye of the storm, protected only by ghosts holding hands and enclosing them in their circle. The whirlwind of debris roared behind their flickering images; a mad merry-go-round of broken planks, red velvet chairs, old newspapers, bricks, ropes, shreds of glass, green sheets of plastic, torn carpets and curtains. The cinema theatre fell apart, swallowed by the tornado, and now they were in the middle of it all, sucked up and away, somewhere above the Summit Creek, Colorado, above the US, above the world, into the regions, where the air was to thin and too cold to breathe, so far from the ground below, it would take them a long while to fall down and die.

Donna felt the Doctor's hands on her shoulders, but she screwed her eyes closely, refusing to look. The whirlwind was spinning them madly, but not quickly enough to tear them apart, as a _real_ tornado should. She could feel an upwards motion, still upwards, as if the storm meant to remove them from the Earth's atmosphere and dispose of them somewhere in the cold outer space. With her eyes tightly shut, she screamed through the wind's howls:

"What's going on?"

"A crack!" the Doctor shouted back. "There's a rift! A hole in the world!"

"What?!"

"Just look at it!"

"Doctor, we're going to die! I don't care about holes in the world! There's no way we're gonna make it!"

"Oh, just _look_ at it! C'mon, aren't you curious!? _C'mon_!"

"If we survive this, I'm gonna _kill you_!" Donna opened her eyes for a brief moment, long enough to see a weird image above their heads. The sky was split in half, bleeding embers of electric discharges marking the edges of the tear in the sky. Beyond the rift, there was a dizzying waste of darkness and lights, somehow defying all the rules Donna was used to on Earth. It was so sickening, she almost threw up.

"What's _that_?!"

"A transdim..."

A force sucking them all up suddenly disappeared. Donna could swear that for a brief while they were suspended in mid-air, just like Wiley the Coyote a second before plummeting to the bottom of the canyon. Then they started falling. The rush of air pressed all the words and screams back into their lungs. It was impossible even to breathe. They were free-falling. And falling. And falling... A long descent towards a very mushy end.

* * *

**To be continued...**

* * *


	11. We're Game Again!

* * *

**.11. We're Game Again!**

* * *

They rammed hard onto a metal mesh floor.

"_YES_!" the Doctor shouted, jumping up to his feet immediately and rushing to the TARDIS's controls. "That's a girl! Lovely!"

"But... how?" Donna demanded, following him with much less enthusiasm and much more pain. She was rubbing her elbow and limping badly. "How did you get her here?"

"I finally perfected the remote!" The Doctor flashed his boyish smile. "I was misplacing her far too often, see?"

"Yes, good... _Dean_!" Donna circled the control panel to find both Winchesters on the floor; Dean unconscious and bleeding profoundly, Sam shocked and holding his brother in his arms. "Doctor, Dean!"

"Try the teak cabinet in the third room behind the pool," the Doctor said. "There should be a mauve octagonal box there, with a green crescent moon on its side."

"A hospital sign?" Donna whispered, already running down the corridor. "What's in the box?"

"Medical equipment," the Doctor shouted. "Fifty eight century, should do the trick!"

Donna rummaged through the teak cabinet, throwing its contents to the floor and not caring for glass vials shattering under her flip-flops. She found the box and ran back to the control room.

The box wouldn't open. Her fingernails were scratching its lid helplessly. She landed on her knees next to Sam and Dean, gasping with extortion.

"Doctor, I can't open it!"

"Just... just press the glyph!" There was irritation in the Doctor's voice. He was tweaking the TARDIS's controls, as if their lives depended on flipping as many switches and levers as possible. "The green glyph, just press it!"

"Donna, what are you...?" Sam started. Donna pressed the green half-moon and the whiz of the air sucked into the container drowned the rest of Sam's words. Donna reached inside and produced a thick tube of golden metal, slightly wider at one end, with a green button on top of the other.

"What am I supposed to do?!" she yelled across the room.

"Press it to the wound and squeeze the trigger," the Doctor answered. "That should work. At least I think so. There was a manual... somewhere... but..."

"What is it?" asked Sam.

Donna turned the tube in her hands.

"Some sort of... some... I dunno..." She pressed the wider end of the tube to Dean's side and rested her thumb on the green button. "Hope it works. Know any prayers?"

Sam looked at her with pure panic in his eyes. Lower half of his face was covered in drying blood.

"Now be a good time," finished Donna, pushing the button. There was a crackling sound. Dean's eyelids fluttered. And that was it.

"Eeerm... Doctor?" Donna was panicking now as well. "I don't think it worked."

"It didn't?" He leaned across the steering panel to look at them. "Now, that's not good!"

"I know it's not good; tell me what to do!"

"I'll try to land her in a hospital."

"Yes, do it!" shouted Sam.

"Trouble is, she's not responding... much," the Doctor ran his fingers through the mop of his hair in desperation. "There was plenty of trans-dimensional energy there, and she gulped a whole lot of it. It's not compatible with her systems, see? She's a bit sick herself, now, and..."

"I don't care! My brother's dying here! So just take us to the hospital!"

"I'm not dying." Dean's voice was very weak, just a whisper, but they all jumped up in surprise. "Where the hell are we?"

"My ship," the Doctor said. "Well, my spaceship. Weeell, my time-and-space ship. To be precise."

"Yeah, I've got the drift." Dean tried to move and cringed with pain. "Oww... That son-of-a-bitch really kicked my ass."

"Our collective assess," corrected Sam, pointing at apparitions flickering into visibility all around them. "Whatever it was, it was strong."

"Right," said the Doctor. "I've done the best I could. Brace for the impact."

"The _wha_...?"

The TARDIS hit the ground, jumped up, hit the ground again, balanced on the edge of its plinth, then swung back and rammed the surface, coming to a standstill. Humans, Time Lords and apparitions rolled inside just like bits of tin foil and plastic in a toy kaleidoscope. Donna landed on top of Dean. Her hair covered both their faces, and for a moment their breaths become one, as their lips moved closer and closer.

"Everyone ok?" the Doctor asked, crawling from under the steering panel. "Donna? Sam? Ehm... Dean?"

"Yeah," said Donna reluctantly. "Yes, we are."

"More or less," noted Sam.

"Sort of," added Dean.

All they could do at the moment was to sit up on the mesh floor, leaning their backs against weird, organic-looking pillars surrounding the crystal column – now inert – in the middle of the room. The Doctor crouched down in front of them, resting his elbows on his knees, fingers interlaced in front of him.

"If you want to wash or change..." he started.

"Wait a moment," Dean interrupted. "First, I'd like to know, what the hell had happened? The smoke, it looked like a demon. It behaved like a demon. But it wasn't one, was it?"

"A demon?" The Doctor sighed. "Right, I thought demons looked like your Ruby-friend. Now you're telling me they are big bad clouds of smoke?"

"They inhabit human bodies," Sam explained. "When they are out of a body, that's how they look like. More or less. They are more... purple... sort of."

"So, your Ruby possesses somebody's body?"

"Yes," said Dean

"A brain-dead girl's body," said Sam. "She's chosen an empty vessel. She's not hurting anyone."

"Except for you," grumbled Dean.

"She said the truth!" exclaimed Sam. "She tried to save us!"

"We've saved ourselves, thank you very much."

"At least she wasn't as cryptic as your Castiel!"

"At least Castiel is not an evil son-of-a-bitch!"

"Aaaand my Barbie is better than your Barbie!" shouted Donna. "Can we, please, focus now?"

The Doctor chuckled, but Sam and Dean gave her dirty looks.

"It's not a demon," the Doctor said seriously. "It is an alien life form."

"Here we go again!" Dean sighed, rubbing his side with pained expression.

"It is, though," the Doctor insisted. "What's more, it is an alien life form that belongs to another dimension. It slid through the crack in reality; through a trans-dimensional portal created between its universe and ours. It is incompatible with our world in many ways; it is _toxic_ to our world. I presume our world is toxic to the creature as well. It seems malignant and evil, but I think it is simply scared out of its wits. Lost and lonely in an unknown world. It must be... pretty daunting."

"It is turning people into mushy peas," said Dean. "It almost mashed us. I don't care how scared it is, I plan to waste it. And I don't believe in aliens."

"You are onboard of an alien ship." The Doctor stood up, and leaned against a pillar. "Look around. Have you ever seen anything like it?"

"Please, stop it." Sam was wiping his face with a sleeve of his shirt. He was pale and shaky. "Let's take one step at a time. Just, how are we going to find it?"

The Doctor walked to the console and flipped a single switch. A door creaked open at the end of the room.

"Be my guest."

"What, is it there?"

"I calculated its position."

"How?"

"Weeell, ok, so it was the TARDIS who did it. Mostly. She sort of locked onto its energy signature and followed it to the ground whilst landing." The Doctor marched to the door with much gusto. "And look. It's middle of the woods. A perfect hiding place... Erm..." he stuttered. "Well, not... not... really... hiding..."

He squinted at something outside. One of his hands unconsciously ran through his hair again. Donna joined the Doctor at the door and followed his gaze.

"Bloody hell!"

"What is it?" asked Dean, getting up from the floor with much effort.

"It's bloody _ginormous_!" Donna yelled.

"Yeah, it's... quite big," the Doctor confirmed; his voice strangled.

"What?"

"A spaceship," said Donna. "A bloody, huge, gigantic, monstrous spaceship! A mother of all spaceships! A Great Wall of China as far as spaceships go!"

The Doctor made a strange sound with his tongue, as if his palate went completely dry and sticky; and crossed the TARDIS's threshold in one, manic jump.

"Oi!" Donna tried to grab his sleeve, at the same time holding for her dear life to the blue box's doorframe. "Where do you think you're going, _slimboy_?"

"Never seen anything like..." the Doctor mumbled. "Never... in my whole life..."

"See, _told you_!" shouted Donna. "But... it's not a reason to rush there head first, you hear me?! Doctor? Doctor! Oh, bollocks, here he goes again!"

She let go of the door and stepped outside, turning her head up to take in the whole of an alien vehicle. Dean and Sam followed suit; Sam supporting his brother, Dean trying with all his might to pretend that he didn't need any support. They blinked in bright daylight and then they froze in wide-eyed disbelief.

"That's..." Sam muttered.

"Yeah," Dean agreed.

"_Doctor!_" Donna bellowed.

The Doctor was standing at a fringe of a forest. Trees broken and burned down to charcoal stumps surrounded a vast circle of dirt that melted into glass. In the middle of all that destruction, there rested a wreckage of something so alien, it seemed unreal. Dean and Sam were at loss of words when confronted with its rough, broken beauty. Pointy spikes protruded from the ship's hull, making it look very much like a huge tropical fish. A riot of colour emphasised that likeness even further. But the ship was enormous, big as a city, fantastically complicated, crusted with intricate web of bearers, outriggers, aerials and latticework. At least they _could_ have been all those things. Or they could have been weapons. Or just ornaments. There was no way to tell.

"Just what the hell is _that_?" Dean asked.

"It's new," the Doctor whispered. "It's new, and it's _gorgeous_. It's... _I love it!_ I just love it! Donna, I _love_ that ship!"

"Yeah, I've got it, you're in love." Donna grimaced. "Would you kindly step back? Just to remind you – that bloody thing tried to kill us."

"No, it's broken. It's dead. It's gone," the Doctor answered. "What a _magnificent_ destruction!"

"It is a spaceship?" Dean tried to make sure. "An alien spaceship?"

"It's more than that!" The Doctor swivelled towards them, an expression of the highest elation written across his face. "It's a living ship! Well, it's not alive anymore, obviously, but that's not the point. A living ship! Just, how _brilliant_ is that?!"

"So it is a _dead_ living ship?" Dean asked.

"The TARDIS is a living ship," Donna murmured.

"An _alive_ living ship?" said Dean.

"Well, _duh_!" Donna said.

"How am I supposed to know?!" he yelled. "This..." He made a wide circle with his hand. "This is nuts! It's not supposed to be here! I don't even _believe_ in it!"

Donna turned to him and tilted her head with a minute teasing smile.

"You made me believe in angels," she said. "Let the Doctor and me make you believe in aliens."

"What a beautiful nonsense!" The Doctor exclaimed with a mad scientist's joy. "We're game again, Donna! _Bloody lovely_!"

* * *

**To be continued...**


	12. Go Explore Have Fun

_**Disclaimer:** Naaay, I couldn't even dream of ownership. I just wash them, and polish them, and service them, and take them for a ride every now and then, so they won't get rusty when unused ;D_

* * *

**.12. Go. Explore. Have Fun.**

* * *

"The thing is," Sam said slowly, "that if this... living-ship is dead, it couldn't possibly try to kill us. Right? You've just said that it had died on entering our atmosphere. It was dead long before it hit the ground?"

"It's been poisoned," the Doctor confirmed. "See those vents over there? They're energy collectors. The ship sucks up energy from the environment, all the time, just like a whale is constantly filtering water to feed on plankton. But this world's energy has a different signature; to simplify things, let's just say, it's toxic. The ship inhaled deeply when exiting the trans-dimensional portal, where it was surely suffocating already; it sucked up the toxic energy of an alien reality – that's our world – and... well... it died. And then it rammed the ground," The Doctor finished happily.

The three of them were seated along a trunk of a fallen pine tree, fragrant sap slowly gluing their backsides to its bark. Donna had disappeared inside the blue box an hour before, and hadn't emerged since. The Doctor had earned his title earlier by mending Sam and Dean's cuts, bruises, grazes and wounds, but the brothers had definitely refused to accept the clothing the TARDIS's extensive wardrobe offered. There had been an impressive choice of polo shirts, v-neck jumpers, orange jackets, platform shoes, furs, lederhosen and panama hats. And nothing to wear. So, although not zombie-like anymore, they still looked like extras in some war movie – their clothes torn and bloodied. Somewhat they started to look at the Doctor in a slightly different way as well. Just in an anxious and a little bit amused way.

The three men were facing the wreckage. They wore pensive expressions.

"I'm still trying to get over the whole living-ship thing," Dean sighed.

"And I am trying to wrap my mind around the question of who tried to kill us." Sam shook his head. "Can a living ship have passengers? Could they have survived the crash?"

"It can and they could," the Doctor admitted. "But they'd be dead by now as well. I've scanned the ship. The atmosphere they'd need for breathing is nothing like the mixture of nitrogen – oxygen – argon – carbon dioxide – neon – helium – methane – krypton..."

"It's nothing like the air we breathe?" Sam cut in.

"Erm... basically... yeah."

"Could they have space suits?"

"They could. They would certainly have space suits if they were anything like humanoids. Or like many other life forms. It's just... the thing that attacked us... it was gaseous... Somehow I can't imagine a gaseous life form wearing a space suit..." The Doctor looked up suddenly and clucked his tongue. "No... Wait a tick..." he said. "I can."

"It wasn't gaseous," Dean said angrily. "It stabbed me. It nearly gutted me like a fish! Show me gas that can stab somebody like that."

"So they can change their state of aggregation," the Doctor said. "They're gas, then they're solids, then..."

"I don't care if they're farts and floaters," Dean barked. "How do we waste them?"

"Waste them?" The Doctor shrugged and furrowed his brow. "Why waste them? You're all about _wasting_ things, you know? Not a very healthy attitude."

"So what would you say we should do about them?" Dean snapped.

"Talk to them?" the Doctor said.

"Talk to them? _Talk_ to them?!" Dean exclaimed. "Why not invite them over for a nice cup of tea as well?" He sprung up from the log, only to sit down again, as the freshly healed wound reacted with a wave of pain. "They are _killers_, Doctor! But for your ship we'd be dead right now! We'd be smeared all over the hills and the valleys, cause, trust me, that's what happens when you are falling from a stratosphere without a parachute!"

"A scared creature attacks you in its panic, and all you can do about it is _killing it_?" the Doctor asked, an angry glimmer in his eye. "How _human_ of you."

"We can't be sure if it's scared," Dean said stubbornly. "For all we know it may be a psycho-killer from outer space. For all we know it may be a foreplay to invasion."

"Why the first thing you can think of when meeting aliens, is invasion?" The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Some of the species out there are actually quite benign."

"Does it look benign to you?" Dean gestured towards the ship, throwing Sam off balance and nearly pushing him to the ground. "Are _you_ going to say something?" Dean growled, turning to his brother.

"What? Yeah. What?" Sam straightened on the tree trunk, blinking as if awoken from a deep sleep. He looked pale and tired, black circles under his eyes. Somebody might have thought that it was him, who had got mortally wounded in the theatre.

"Back me up here, will you?" Dean demanded.

"Right. Why?" Sam muttered. "Sorry, I've been miles away."

"I just don't believe it!" said Dean. "Here we are, facing this freaking spacey... _thing_, and you are _miles away_!

Now it was Sam's turn to get up suddenly, shrugging his shoulders.

"Well, forgive me!" he said. "I was just thinking about how it _doesn't really concern us_! It's a spaceship, Dean! A _SPACESHIP_! Not much we can do about that. We should be making a move..."

"Right! Are we going?"

The three of them turned to look at Donna, who had just emerged from the blue box. She had changed into a pair of jeans and a khaki shirt, sleeves rolled up, wide leather belt underlining her waist. Her clothes seemed casual, but she had certainly spent the last hour doing something to her hair, as her face was now surrounded by fiery ringlets, reflecting the sunlight in all the shades of amber, bronze, wine, caramel and ochre. None of the three men paid any attention, of course.

"Where to?"

"The ship." Donna shook her hair, desperately trying to make it noticed.

"Yes!" The Doctor jumped to his feet. "Right. Let's go!"

"Wait," said Sam grumpily. "You're going to enter an alien, hostile, toxic ship like that? No protection? No... I don't know... hazmat suits, or something? Are you both mad?"

Donna and the Doctor were already marching across the glass surface of melted dirt; two tiny dots in comparison with the vastness of the spacecraft.

"I'm not going," Sam muttered. "I'm not going to end with a gooey spider attached to my face and with an alien critter in my ribcage."

Dean got up slowly, one hand pressed firmly to his side.

"Come on, Sigourney Weaver." He followed the Doctor and Donna limping slightly. "You're such a girl."

"Jerk!" Sam responded immediately.

"Bitch!" Dean laughed.

Half an hour later they were standing in the shadow of the massive ship's body, looking up at the Doctor monkeying his way towards a wide crack in its wall, about five meters above the ground. The slim man was climbing quickly, using twisted and broken spikes, protruding from the ship, as handholds and footholds. He pulled himself up and slid through the crack inside the ship's belly.

"He's good," Dean muttered wistfully. "Doesn't look like much, but he's good."

"He is, isn't he?" Donna turned to him for a moment, bright smile on her face, eyes glittering. "Good old Doctor, swear by him!"

"Sam, help me up... Sam?" Dean looked down at his brother, sitting on a piece of rumble, his back resting against the ship's hull. "What's wrong with you, man?"

"Just tired..."

"Well, you look like death warmed up. Are you hurt?"

"Just a headache..."

Dean exhaled with irritation.

"Super-powers abuse after-effects, right?"

The younger Winchester just looked at him darkly.

"Out of juice?" Dean asked ironically. "Running on empty?"

"We'd be dead but for my super-powers," Sam snapped, getting up from the rumble. "Good to know you appreciate. And yeah, feels like my head's gonna burst. So just... just..." He didn't find words and only waved his hand at his older brother. "Just go. Explore. Have fun."

There was a horrible, squeaky, rusty sound, and a wide opening appeared in the ship's hull, just a few feet from where the brothers were standing. The Doctor's excited face popped out from the aperture. His eyes found them and he beamed at them excitedly. "Knew it must've been the door," he said. "C'mon, I've got something to show you!"

Donna made a little exclamation of excitement and rushed inside the ship. Sam sighed painfully. Dean shrugged his shoulders and followed the Doctor and Donna. Sam caught up with them a moment later and together they made their way through a dark and narrow tunnel, full of twisted and melted bits of metal and plastic. At least it looked like metal and plastic. There were odd smells in the air and a ticking sound of machinery cooling down. In the blue glow of the Doctor's sonic screwdriver the colours were subdued, but still each turn of the tunnel welcomed them with a new outburst of phosphorescent shades. They were something out of a mad coral reef diver's dream, or out of a dream of a mad graffiti painter who had gained access to an unlimited stock of glow-in-the-dark paints.

They entered an octagonal room, as big as a shopping mall, but empty, except for a huge formation of 'metal', 'plastic' and colour in the middle. Donna moved closer, her head tilted, a sorrowful expression on her face, as she was looking up, at an alien body sprawled across that bright formation in the centre of the room. The body was huge as well, several times bigger than a human being. It was serrated and monotonously grey. It had a roughly humanoid shape; but only roughly. It had arms, but no legs – just a big, wobbly blob of tissue, fitted in the 'chair', or whatever the formation might have been. The alien's head was long and narrow, more snout-like than face-like. The alien's eyes; all three of them; were still open and reflecting all the beauty of colours in the octagonal room.

"What, the hell, is that?" asked Dean, although he knew already that 'that' was an alien, and that it was as dead as a doorknob.

"The pilot, I presume," the Doctor answered.

"O, my God!" said Sam entering the room. "This is..."

"Your first alien?" the Doctor smiled. "Welcome to the other side, boys. Welcome to the bottom of the well.

He climbed the plinth of the pilot's chair, and leaned over the dead body, sonicking something resembling a control panel.

"Sorry he's dead," Donna added. She looked back at the Winchesters, tears in her eyes.

"It's been dead for a while," the Doctor noted, tweaking with alien controls. "It's been wounded even before it fell through the inter-dimensional portal. And the ship was damaged... Now... Is this a wave-warping circuit? Where's the switch, then...? Oooh... _there_ you are, you lovely thing!"

"Can... can you... pilot this ship?" Dean gasped.

"Weeell," the Doctor looked back at him, twirling the screwdriver in his long fingers. "I could... probably... if it wasn't broken. Still, plenty of alien tech; need to think of what to do with it. We can't have living-ships technology in the twenty first century, can we, now?"

"Do you know this... this species?" Sam asked quietly.

"No," the Doctor dived towards the control panel again. "Different universe. Different life forms. But I know it was alone onboard. See, it's a ship's log, and it states here... erm... crew of one... the pilot... cargo of... whatever _ffshpussenq_ means..."

"It doesn't explain much," Dean noticed. "If this one is dead, and there are no other critters around, what was that in the theatre? What did nearly waste me?"

"Well, it wasn't the pilot," the Doctor admitted. "The log's life-signs monitor states that it had died just before the ship hit the ground. As I thought, it was poisoned..."

"Oh, stop it!" Donna said suddenly. "It is not an _it_!"

"Well we don't know if it was male, or female, or multi-gender, or no-gender, or..." the Doctor began. Donna glared daggers at him.

"No, but... It... _He_ was a living creature," she growled. "And _he_ is dead. A little respect."

"Note it's eyes," the Doctor said. "Beautiful eyes, very well evolved eyes, _brilliant_ eyes! The creature was grey, and plain, and kind of ugly, but it surrounded itself with such a beauty. All the colours and shapes."

"_He_!" Donna shouted. "And he wasn't _ugly_! _You_ would be ugly to him, all _pink_, and _thin_, and _hairy_!"

The Doctor's jaw dropped a little.

"Am I hairy?" he asked. "Is that good or bad?" he added after a second thought. "Donna?"

For Donna jumped to her feet suddenly and rushed towards the exit, copper coloured ringlets flying, tears in her eyes. She pushed the Winchesters, still standing there in an open-mouthed amazement, to the sides and ran through the narrow corridor, trying to muffle sobs.

"Donna?" the Doctor repeated. "I didn't mean... Donna, it's... _He_ is dead, he can't hear... Well, what have I said _now_?!"

* * *

_**To be continued...**_


	13. What With the Drama?

_Hello! It's me! I've regenerated! _

_Well, no, I haven't, but anyway, I've left this story for long enough to regenerate and save the world 3.9 times:-). Sorry for that. _

_I hope you'll like these two little chapters I've managed to write. They are rather subdued after all the explosions and say more about emotions of the characters. Enjoy!_

* * *

**.13. What with the drama?**

* * *

Donna didn't want to cry. She was so angry as she stomped out of the wreckage of an alien ship, she really, really didn't want to cry. And yet, she cried. For the alien pilot – because he _was_ ugly, all grey and shapeless, and wobbly. For the alien ship – because it was so beautiful and so broken. And because of the Doctor – because he was so tactless and inconsiderate again. So _alien_ himself.

She sobbed bitterly, curled under the ship's radiant wall. When she finally wiped her eyes and looked up, there was a ghost standing in front of her. Or an _imprint_, as the Doctor would say. Angelina Prow held the bunch of pink carnations close to her face; only her large, dark, opaque eyes were visible. Her image was fairly stable, and yet it flickered just above the perception threshold, hurting Donna's eyes.

"He's dead," she whispered, sniffling loudly. "That alien, he's dead."

"You should leave," Angelina answered. "It's not safe."

"What about you?" Donna asked.

"We're dead already," the ghost answered matter-of-factly.

Donna sighed.

"They are going to help you," she said. "The boys... and the Doctor."

"They'll salt and burn the corpse," Angelina said. "Wonder if that'll make us revert to what we were before we saw the hole in the world? That'd make things easier. It wouldn't be so scary. When they'll come to salt and burn _us_."

"They wouldn't do _that_!" Donna exclaimed. "You're... you're..."

Angelina's image flickered madly in front of her, as if somebody switched it off, on, and off and on again in a quick succession. She lowered her hands with the bunch of pink flowers and looked Donna in the eye, lips twisted in a sad little smile. Then she let her image change; just for a second, but long enough to make Donna shriek in fear. And then the rotting flesh exposing bare teeth and dark holes of eye cavities was gone. Angelina buried her pretty face in carnations again.

"We're ghosts," she whispered, "and your friends are ghost hunters. Once our fight here's over, they'll do what they have to do."

"Oh, no, they _won't_!" Donna shook off the shock and squared her shoulders against sheer possibility of the Winchesters killing off friendly ghosts. "I won't let them!"

"We may not have a choice," Dean said, as he emerged from the hole in the ship's hull. Donna swivelled to face him.

"You can't!" she yelled. "They warned us! They tried to protect us! They are the _victims_, for Pete's sake, they are not evil!"

"Not now," Dean agreed, shaking his head. "But they're wrong. And when they go back to being what they were before..."

"No!" Donna looked at Angelina, disappearing slowly into the thin air, sadness written across her white face. "Well, say something! Don't just accept your fate! Don't go! Fight!"

"Donna..." Dean hesitated before continuing. "They were offered a way out once, and they refused. They chose to stay. But they are just shadows, nothing more. All they used to know – gone. Everybody they used to love – dead. They are alone and they are desperate. Each passing year steals more and more of their humanity, of their sanity. Some of them will become withered images; no thought, no soul, just pain and longing. And some of them will become angry. And then somebody will have to come here and end them."

"No," Donna repeated quietly. "You can't"

Tears rolled down her cheeks. Dean reached out and wrapped his arm round her shoulders. Donna gasped and buried her face in his blood stained jacket.

"I'm sorry," Dean said gently. "I'm really sorry."

"And what if they will not change? If they will be as they are now?" Donna whispered into his lapel. He just hugged her and suddenly she felt his lips touching her hair. She looked up, Dean's face blurry through the film of tears, and then she was kissing him, first helplessly, then angrily, then furiously, and then just kissing, and feeling sweet and sad, and lost in that single moment...

"Ekh-erm..."

Their lips parted and they moved away from each other, but only a little bit – their arms were still wrapped around each other. Sam and the Doctor were staring at them; the first with a tiny smile, the later with a completely blank expression on his face.

"Doctor?" Donna whispered.

"Yeah," he answered indifferently.

"I... We..."

"We have work to do." He shrugged. "It's getting late."

"Work?"

"I need some stuff from the TARDIS," the Doctor turned on his heel, instantly walking away, hands in pockets, the long coat billowing behind him. "We're going to have a séance."

"A séance?" Dean repeated. He let go of Donna, and turned to Sam. "What the hell?"

The younger Winchester only shrugged.

"A séance? A _séance_?! He's joking, right?" Dean insisted.

"He said he wanted to talk to the imprint," Sam explained.

"Talk? That bloody alien tried to kill us! You know I hate flying, and it made me fly _without the plane_! I'm not talking to it! I'm wasting it!" He flinched as Donna's hand connected with his cheek. "_Ow_! What?!"

"You're not _sorry_!" Donna yelled at him. "You just want to _kill_ them!"

She pushed him away and ran after the Doctor, across the burnt circle of dirt. Sam shifted from one leg to another and crossed his arms on his chest, giving his brother an inquiring look.

"What with the drama?" he asked.

"Mind your own business, will you!" Dean spat furiously.

"Just asking."

"Don't!" Dean inhaled deeply and shook his head. "We've problem here, Sammy. That _douche bag_ wants to communicate with a dead alien, a dead alien that turns into a great big cloud of supercharged badness, capable of lifting a whole building high up into the air and sending it to the Land of Oz! Can you spot a fault in his brilliant plan? Well, I can! It's the one where we all _die_!"

"We could always leave," Sam said quietly.

"What?!"

"We could leave and be where we're supposed to be," Sam repeated.

Dean gave him a look. "Go," he said curtly.

Sam started, surprised. "Dean?"

The older Winchester sighed. "Go, Sam, I can't stop you. Just go. It's probably safer, anyway. Go see Bobby."

"What about you?"

"There's a body-mashing ghost here, and an alien madman intending to play flying tables with it. I can't leave."

"Dean..."

"What?!"

"Oh, let's just finish it," Sam said suddenly. "Let's salt it, and burn it, and send it to whatever after-world the aliens go to. But the moment we're finished here..."

"Yeah, yeah." The corner of Dean's mouth twitched slightly, but he managed not to smile. "We're gonna need a lot of salt, don't you reckon?"

* * *

_**To be continued...**_


	14. ChickFlick Moments are Nigh

**14. Chick Flick Moments are Nigh**

* * *

Donna slid through the door feeling guilty and angry at the same time. At the moment she hated both Dean for being a jerk, and the Doctor for being a gentleman.

_Men!_

The Doctor was flat on his belly on the floor, his head and shoulders below the metal mesh surface. He was rummaging through a tangle of the TARDIS's weird entrails, puffing with exertion. When Donna's steps rang on the floor, he emerged from the hole. His face was red and his hair wild.

"What was that?" Donna hissed.

The Doctor started slightly, apparently taken aback by her attitude. "What was what?" he asked.

"Oh, don't give me that '_I am completely unaware of what you're on about_' pose!" Donna said. "So, we've kissed!"

"Yeah, I've noticed." The Doctor twirled the sonic in his slim fingers.

"Now you're going to act like you don't give a damn, right?!"

"Donna," he sighed. "I give a damn."

"You do?" Now it was her turn to hesitate.

"Well, yeah."

Donna shifted uneasily, and crossed her arms on her chest.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I didn't plan it. It just, sort of, happened. Besides, we're not a couple, you and me; we are just mates."

"Yes, you're right. It's me who should be apologising here." The Doctor removed his brainy specs and folded them carefully. "I guess I was a bit awkward. It's just... I've got used to... Well, my recent companions..."

"You're incredible!" snorted Donna, turning away.

"I'm not saying... Donna... I'm not trying to imply... _anything_..." The Doctor got up to his feet, but instead of coming closer to her, he walked away, so that they were separated by the TARDIS's rota. "It's just you are special, you have always been special. You've been the only person in the whole universe whom I trusted completely."

That hurt. "You don't trust me anymore?"

"I... I do, Donna. You went to hell and back – to use the Winchesters' vocabulary – to rescue me, to save me. Most people expect me to do all the rescuing. But not you. Never you. You're the strongest woman I've ever met." He smiled at her sadly. "But he's gonna break your heart."

"No."

"No?"

"No, Doctor. He's not gonna break my heart and I'm not gonna break his. He is cute and I like him. He likes me. Tomorrow we will be in a completely different places, perhaps even times. No regrets there. No looking back." Donna shrugged. "Somebody told me my story was different to Dean's. Kinda somebody you tend to believe."

"I've got an impression..." The Doctor hesitated.

"What, that I loved him?"

"I wouldn't go _that_ far." He smiled. "But you did seem... infatuated."

Donna looked at him sadly. The Doctor stared back, head slightly tilted, eyebrows high up his forehead.

"Well, I can't be infatuated, can I?" she said. "Because this is my life now, here, travelling with you. And it will always be."

A shadow passed across the Doctor's face. "You might want to reconsider it some day," he whispered.

"I am not stupid," Donna snorted. "I know everything ends. But this..." she stomped her foot on the floor, "this here... it happens now. This is real. This is me. This life, this moment, this Doctor. It's what I want."

Something twisted the Doctor's face for a fraction of a second – some sort of painful emotion Donna had never seen before. And then he opened his eyes wide, and inhaled deeply, and straightened his shoulders, and became normal again – the Doctor she knew.

"We've work to do," he said.

"Yeah," Donna whispered.

The Doctor turned his back on her, collecting all the stuff he had dug out from below the steering room's floor. Donna stood there for a moment, staring into the air.

_So old_, she thought. _So many people. So many goodbyes. So many happy moments which were supposed to last forever. But the longer you live, the clearer you see that everything has to end..._

She snorted again angrily.

_Well, has it?_ She thought. _Who said it had to? Who made it a rule? If my dying would hurt him, make him lonely again, then I will not die. I will never, ever die. Nor will I let the walls of the universe separate us, or some unimaginable time currents get in-between us. I will not, 'cause I..._

"Hand me that spanner, will you?"

Donna laughed.

"What?" The Doctor looked at her in this slightly 'I've-been-parsecs-away' manner of his.

"Nothing," she said. "I'm on it."

* * *

_**To be continued...**_


	15. Plan A and Plan B

_**Author's note:** Okey-dokey, I haven't been here donkey's years but nothing is ever forgotten as one Robin used to say:). Let me finish this story. Please. And forgive my English:)_

_**Disclaimer:** No, not mine. 10th, I'm still loving you! Winchester boys, ditto! No money involved (some spent on DVD's but that doesn't count)._

* * *

**.15. **

**Plan A and Plan B**

* * *

There was a small petrol station just a few miles away. It was completely abandoned (and Dean didn't even want to ask why), but there was a plastic box at the back filled with road salt. Dean managed to jump-start a rusty pick-up truck parked by the pumps, while Sam was pouring salt into bags found in the shop. There was a barbecue corner in the shop as well, full of flammable goodness. The Winchesters drove back to the ship in much higher spirits than before (but for Dean painfully missing the Impala).

The task of carrying the salt bags into the ship was a pain in the back. Literally. Dean tried to help, but his wound still hurt, and eventually it was Sam who's done most of the lifting and carrying. Now, as he slumped at the pile of bags, Sam looked half dead. His T-shirt, already torn and bloodied, was now soaked with sweat as well. He was breathing heavily through dried lips.

"Is it just me or is it hot in here?" he asked wiping his forehead with the back of his hand.

Dean slowly placed a metal canister on the fluorescent floor. The strong smell of petrol wafted from the rusty container.

"It will be soon enough," Dean answered.

"I'm just surprised it's not attacking us," Sam mused.

"Maybe it doesn't know, what we're up to." Dean shook his head. "Being alien and all."

"Something has just crossed my mind," Sam moaned, rolling down from a temporary bed of salt bags. "What if salt is not a weapon of choice in that other universe?"

"What?" Dean stopped dead and glared at his brother in shock.

"I don't know, but… Different worlds – different rules. I mean, our atmosphere was toxic to it, so, God only knows what it had been breathing back at home? Pure carbon dioxide maybe? Cyanide fumes? How can we be sure that salt and iron would have the same properties in whatever reality he tumbled down from?"

Dean broke out of his stupor after a tick. He shrugged angrily, and banged the container's cap back into its place.

"You think too much!" he growled.

"I just… I am considering possibilities."

"I felt much better before you did that!"

"Yeah, but… Maybe we should ask him?" Sam moved his head towards the Doctor, kneeling on the floor, surrounded by all sorts of mismatched equipment.

"I've just seen him connecting an i-pod to a typewriter," Dean snorted. "With a fork. _That_ doesn't inspire much confidence. He's supposed to be this centuries old alien but… I'll be damned if he looks like one."

"Is _she_ an alien as well?" Sam mused.

"Who?"

"Donna."

"What?"

"Is she a one thousand year old alien as well?" Sam repeated. "I've never had the time to ask."

Dean looked towards the other end of the chamber, where Donna stood, her back on them all, talking quietly to a little crowd of flickering ghosts.

"She's not," he said quietly. "She's just a girl."

"Ruby called her an anomaly," Sam continued, his brow furrowed.

"Ruby called you a devil's own!" Dean spat. "Who cares what that bitch says!"

Sam kicked the salt bag which slid from the pile, back into position.

"She doesn't lie," he said. "She said they didn't belong here; both of them. She said that they'd be trouble. She said you'd get involved and become… careless…"

"When did she say that?" Dean growled, turning to Sam.

"Yeah…" the younger Winchester hesitated visibly. "Forget about it."

"What you've been up to last night, eh, Sammy?" Dean was in his face now, his green eyes sparkling with anger. "Back with your hell-bitch?"

"Dean…"

"What _truths_ did she tell you this time?"

"Just leave it." Sam turned on his heel and started walking towards the corridor's entrance.

"Practising some more black arts, were you?" Dean shouted behind him. "Brewing up some bad _mojo_?"

Sam stopped for a moment, his shoulders squared. He didn't look back at Dean, but he answered quietly: "She wouldn't talk to me. She was afraid."

"She wouldn't deliver whatever it is she delivers to make you a supercharged bad-ass, right?" Dean insisted. "That's why you are so wasted."

"I am wasted because I had single-handedly stopped the gigantic cloud of alien spiritual energy from killing my brother," Sam muttered.

"Not so single-handedly, and no, you didn't," Dean said coldly. "_The Doctor_ did."

Sam's shoulders dropped half an inch, but he didn't turn his head. He just walked away slowly towards the corridor and outside the vast chamber. Dean was still bristling with anger. It was like a triple espresso combined with a shot of RedBull surging through his arteries. It made his face twitch uncontrollably. He marched across the room towards the Doctor.

"What's that supposed to be?" he growled at the alien's skinny back in a pinstriped suit. "What are you doing?"

The Doctor turned his head slightly. He was wearing his black-rimmed glasses, and his face was smeared with dirt. "I could tell you..." he started, then reconsidered, "…but you wouldn't understand."

"Try me." Dean crossed his arms on his chest, angrier still.

"I'm building a telephone," the Doctor said slowly.

"What?"

"Weeell, maybe not a telephone as such, more like an energy converter, but isn't it what a telephone is – the vibrations turned into electric impulses and then turned back into vibrations creating a sound?"

"Do you still want to talk to this butt wipe?" Dean cut in harshly.

The Doctor glared at him from above the specs. "Yep."

"What about?"

"For starters, I'll ask how I can help it," the Doctor said angrily. He pointed the tip of his sonic screwdriver straight at Dean's chest. "I'll try to calm it down. I'll try to make it communicate."

"Have you done it before?" Dean asked.

The Doctor shrugged his shoulders. "No."

"I have," Dean said slowly.

"Have you communicated with dead aliens from other dimensions?" The Doctor's eyebrow shot upwards in mock surprise.

"I talked to dead people," Dean growled. "Can't be that different. I tried talking to angry spirits before. Never ended well, you know."

"Yeah." The Doctor shrugged again. "Good to know that we have your plan B, just in case plan A fails." He looked over his shoulder at the funeral pyre the Winchesters built around the dead pilot. His eyebrows met above his narrow nose.

"Right!" Dean swivelled on his heel. He made a move as if he was going away, but then he looked back. "Sam thinks salt may not work. Different dimensions – different rules."

"Yeah…" The Doctor stretched and ruffled his hair absent-mindedly. "Well, I don't believe in all that chants, and spells and salt and fire stuff anyway. But if I believed… Sam could be right. Let's just hope we won't need to find out. A-ha…!"

"What?"

"The field started building. Now all we want is catching the imprint's attention. It shouldn't take long," the Doctor answered happily.

Dean only glared.

* * *

**_To be continued..._**


	16. The Funeral Pyre is Lit

_**Author's note:** Ask yourselves a question: WWDD? And WWWD?_

_**Disclaimer:** Mr Kripke owns the boys. Who owns Who? I sure don't!_

* * *

**.16.**

** The Funeral Pyre is Lit**

* * *

Two hours later they were all sitting on the floor near the pilot's chair. Sam fell asleep, his head resting on a salt bag. Donna was twirling a strand of her hair in her fingers. Dean was playing with the knife, throwing it up in the air and catching it before it fell to the floor. The Doctor closed his eyes and was murmuring something under his breath.

"Let's just burn it," Dean said for an umpteenth time as he closely avoided slashing his fingers off with a sharp blade. "We can't wait forever."

"No!" The Doctor's eyes snapped open and he jumped up from the floor.

"Why not? Why not, Doctor? It is the most humane thing we can do anyway," Dean sighed.

"And that's what throws me – the _humane thing_," the Doctor growled. "'cause, whenever I hear you talking about _humane solutions_, all I can see is a guillotine… or an electric chair… If I were human I wouldn't use the word _humane_ to describe an act of homicide."

Donna looked at him half angrily and half sadly. She opened her mouth, but she just sighed.

"Even if you talk to it, Doctor…" Dean insisted. "…even if you succeed, what then? It is dead. It is a ghost. If we leave it as it is, it will kill again. You said it was killing, because it was scared, fine, but soon it'll start killing because it is trapped, and alone, and stuck here, on Earth, so far away from its home. All I say is – we should set it free."

"No." The Doctor's eyebrows met above his nose. He gave Dean a heavy glare. "No. Not like that."

The older Winchester withstood the Doctor's stare.

"It's not your call." He reached inside his jacket and produced a zippo lighter. His thumb flicked the cap. "It's not your game. You don't know the rules. We're sitting here, waiting for this thing to come back and try to whip as to death again. That's stupid!"

"Stupid!" the Doctor exclaimed. He jumped up, throwing hands in the air. "Stupid! I'm old and stupid!"

"I call it epiphany," Donna whispered under her breath. "What?" she looked at the Doctor glaring at her from above his makeshift contraption on the floor. "I know things. And words. I even know what they mean."

"I'm using a wrong bait!" he said, twisting dials and disconnecting wires only to reconnect them again in different spots. "First time, I amplified emotional echo of the theatre. And it was full of terrified ghosts. I wasn't being polite, I wasn't inviting it into conversation. I transmitted fear. Raw, unadulterated fear, despair, loss and pain. It feeds on it. It kills to get food. While the body is falling down to earth, to crash, all that terror... all that emotion..."

Dean froze with his thumb on the lighter's cap, and Donna pressed her hand to her mouth. Sam woke up with a start and was staring at the Doctor with bleary, bloodshot eyes.

"What are you trying to say?" Dean asked quietly.

"It is not coming, because it is not hungry," the Doctor beamed at him, both hands full of nuts and wires. "It's feasted on us as we were falling down; on Sam's fear, on Donna's panic, on my – anxiety – on your pain, on the ghosts' despair. It's full up, it's digesting."

"So, it will not come?" Donna asked hopefully.

"Not very soon, no," The Doctor shook his head. "How long were the intervals between the deaths in the area?"

"Between mushings? Week. Ten days," Dean said, understanding dawning in his voice.

"Ten days after a normal meal. And it's just had a four course feast." The Doctor pushed a large mirror to the middle of the octagonal room. "It is too busy digesting to talk to me."

"Good," Donna said. "So why are you running around?"

"Changing settings."

"To what?"

"To emetics."

"I'll be damned," Sam whispered getting up slowly. "You wanna make it sick?"

"That'll draw its attention."

"That'll piss it off!"

"Doctor, I don't think we should..." Donna started, but the slim man finished changing the arrangement of his instruments and flipped a main switch. There was no sound, but Donna had an awful sensation, as if she bite into cotton wool at the same time dragging her nails across the blackboard, and crushing wet Styrofoam, while in an aeroplane falling down in the air current. Her stomach twisted and turned, and blood drained off her cheeks. The ghosts reappeared all around, twitching and moaning. Dean tripped and fell to one knee, shouting out in sudden pain, and Sam simply collapsed back onto the salt bags, both hands pressed tightly to his temples.

"Doctor!" Donna yelled. "This is bad! It's really bad!"

"Dean!" shouted Sam, "Do it!"

Dean's lighter flicked and lobbed across the room, trailing a long tongue of flame. It landed in the puddle of petrol.

"No!" the Doctor exclaimed.

Blue flame whooshed up the alien pilot's armchair, spread across salt bags and the floor. In an instant the funeral pyre was lit and blazing.

"No!" the Doctor groaned. "What did you do that for?"

"To stop you from killing us all?" Dean grabbed Donna's hand and pulled her up from the floor. "C'mon, let's get outa here! Sam, can you walk? Doctor?"

The pilot's body was melting. It was giving off a horrible stench – sweet and bitter, and very alien. Smoke was gathering under a high ceiling. Donna started coughing and couldn't stop.

"Doctor!" she called in between coughs. "Doctor, just _leave_ it!"

She couldn't see him anymore in thickening smoke. Dean was dragging her away, and Sam was stumbling behind them, but she couldn't see the Doctor.

"Dean," she gasped, "Dean, he's stayed behind!"

The Doctor's machinery was still singing silently, provoking unbearable nausea and headache. Donna was half conscious when she realized, she was tumbling out of the alien spaceship. She writhed in Dean's arms.

"He stayed inside!" she yelled. "You left him behind!"

Dean just looked at her. His face was pale, and his eyes seemed very large. He squeezed Donna's arms one last time, looked at Sam tumbling to the ground next to them, then took a deep breath and run back towards the ship. He was about to reach the corridor when the whole vehicle exploded with fire, smoke and horrible, coughy whinnying.

Standing motionlessly, as if paralysed, Donna looked up, at the ball of green and gold fire the spaceship turned itself into. There was no way in for Dean to go back for the Doctor. The funeral pyre was burning, radiating immense heat, together with apocalyptic noise of a pissed off alien ghost.

Donna screamed wordlessly. Dean swore.

The burning ship sank into flames and the Doctor with it.

* * *

_**To be continued...**_


End file.
